The Social Wellbeing Agency works on challenging social-sector problems to improve people’s lives. We focus our efforts on where we can make the greatest impact to lead and shine a light on policy issues that affect the wellbeing of New Zealanders. We collaborate across the system advising on policy issues that fall between the gaps. Ultimately, we want our approaches to achieve sustainable improvements for the wellbeing of New Zealanders.
We use a broad and inclusive set of wellbeing measures that tell us whether people are leading full, meaningful lives. We create tools and practices to target gaps in the social sector’s knowledge. We partner with the social sector, combining science, data and lived experience to draw insights that are enriched by whānau voices.
We support the sector’s capability to utilise insights by creating tools and practices that stimulate innovation. And we work with decision-makers to take insights and apply them.
We report to the Minister for Social Development – Hon Carmel Sepuloni(external link) – who agrees the Agency's work programme in consultation with the Social Wellbeing Board of social sector chief executives.
Learn what a social wellbeing approach looks like in practice. Read our case study Towards better social sector decision making and practice: a social wellbeing approach [PDF, 2.2 MB].
Formerly the Social Investment Agency, we became the Social Wellbeing Agency on 19 March 2020. Read the Minister's press release(external link).
We are a Departmental Agency hosted within Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission.
