The Maori Party is shaping up as The Ideas Party in this parliament.

In recent weeks we’ve seen genuinely new and creative ideas floated by both Tariana Turia (bulk funding of community agencies to deliver social outcomes) and Pita Sharples (rehabilitation-focused prison units for Maori).

In the tradition of Apirana Ngata and Te Puea Herangi (both of whom also had to help navigate their people through economic depression) these ideas are informed by flaxroots connections to the people who would be affected by the initiatives. But they are also informed by experience in testing and scaling up such initiatives. Turia was a driving force behind Healthcare Aotearoa – the primary healthcare service that all New Zealanders benefit from today, but which started as a venture focused on Maori. As Pat Snedden points out, Healthcare Aotearoa was guided by Treaty principles. And it turns out that a partnership between equal, willing participants is a great basis for better healthcare access and improved healthcare outcomes. Why wouldn’t the same be true for social services?

Sharples’ proposal to involve prisoners in the management of a Maori prison unit has come in for some stick. But this idea actually picks up two of the most important themes of the social innovation movement. Firstly, with social services ever more constrained and struggling to meet demand, we need to empower people to help and manage their own care (“peer to peer” service delivery). This looks promising in health and education – why not corrections? Secondly, services have better outcomes when they are designed WITH the people they are meant to help – not to or for them. Sharples is talking about prisoners with a proven desire for rehabilitation. They most certainly have something to contribute to the design and management of rehabilitation schemes.

Both of these initiatives need to be fine tuned. But that’s true of any truly innovative idea. As Geoff Mulgan told us recently, “Every really good idea was half-baked when it was first formulated.” To get fully cooked, we need to take the idea off the drawing board, and make it happen on a small scale. Then we can systematically test, iterate and scale up where appropriate. The Centre for Social Innovation is building a team with precisely this expertise, in the confidence that more radical ideas will emerge in this recession.

As I’ve said before, we need those ideas if we are to avoid a social recession whose consequences will stay with us for much longer than this economic recession.

- Justine Munro, CEO, Centre for Social Innovation, www.nzcsi.orga>

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