24 APRIL 2014 NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, No. 42 1245

Therefore, to be eligible to access TEC funding under those funding mechanisms from 2014 onwards, all tertiary education organisations (TEOs) are required to submit a proposed Plan (unless the TEO has been identified on the TEC’s website as being exempted by the TEC under section 159U of the Education Act 1989 from the requirement to submit a proposed Plan). The TEC may decide to fund the tertiary education programmes and activities described in a proposed Plan submitted by a TEO for a period of up to three years.

Previous allocation of TEC funding does not entitle a TEO to future funding at any level from the TEC.

The amount of detail in the proposed Plan will depend on the size and complexity of the TEO submitting the Plan.

5. Plan content

The proposed Plan must include the following parts, each of which must clearly connect and align with the others:

(i) Strategic Intent

Performance story

The Strategic Intent section of a proposed Plan (previously called the Plan Context) must outline the value proposition that the TEO will deliver over the coming three years – its performance story – including:

• the TEO’s mission and distinctive role within the overall network of provision; and
• its strategic direction, comprising:
  • the TEO’s proposed outcomes for the coming three years, and why the TEO has decided to seek those outcomes, given government priorities and the needs of the TEO’s stakeholders; and
  • what the TEO is going to do and produce (ie activities and outputs) over the coming three years in order to achieve those outcomes, and why those are the right things to do and produce given the TEO’s operating environment, government priorities, the needs of its stakeholders, and evidence about what works; and
• how the TEO intends to measure its progress in achieving its strategic direction, including what indicators it will use.

The Strategic Intent section of a TEO’s proposed Plan must also summarise:

• how the TEO has identified the needs of its key stakeholders in the community it serves, including:
  • employers, businesses or industries relevant to the TEO’s areas of delivery; and
  • learners or prospective learners, in particular those who are Māori, or Pasifika, or under the age of 25, or who have low levels of literacy, language, and numeracy; and
  • the communities that support Māori and Pasifika learners; and
• how the TEO will respond to the needs of these key stakeholders; and
• how the TEO will report to its key stakeholders on progress towards meeting their needs; and
• how the TEO has performed against the commitments it made in its last Plan (for TEOs that have previously received Plan funding); and
• the findings of any quality assurance reviews; and
• any key changes the TEO is making that are likely to have a significant impact on its educational performance or other outcomes; and
• any key new activities the TEO is contemplating undertaking over the next three years.

Contribution to Government priorities

The Strategic Intent section must also explain how the TEO intends to respond to the Government’s priorities in the Tertiary Education Strategy 2014–2019 in the coming three years. This must include information about how the TEO will:

• identify and respond to the needs of industry and employers and publish information to help inform enrolment choices (the “Delivering Skills for Industry” priority of the Tertiary Education Strategy 2014–2019); and
• attract and engage at-risk young people and support them to progress through tertiary education and into sustainable work (“Getting at-risk young people into a career”); and
• attract and engage Māori and Pasifika students and support them to succeed educationally and achieve better employment outcomes (“Boosting achievement of Māori and Pasifika”); and
• respond to the needs of adult foundation learners with literacy and numeracy skills (“Improving adult literacy and numeracy”); and
• if it is a research-based institution, manage its overall resources to support its research strategy and implementation plan, and support innovation (especially commercial innovation) through research, knowledge exchange, and human capital development (“Strengthening research-based institutions”); and
• help to increase the value of international education to New Zealand (“Growing international linkages”).

Additional requirements for tertiary education institutions

Three additional requirements apply to the Strategic Intent section of proposed Plans of tertiary education institutions only.

First, the performance story presented in the institution’s proposed Plan must:

• reflect the Outcomes Framework the institution has agreed with the TEC, or an institution’s own outcomes framework; and
• align with the narrative in the institution’s other strategic planning and reporting documents.

Second, the Strategic Intent section must explain how the institution will manage its capital assets to support its mission and role over the period of the proposed Plan (including any new significant capital initiatives).

Third, proposed Plans should include a forecast Statement of Service Performance (SSP) to enable the institution to report in its Annual Report on its performance as compared to its proposed outcomes described in its Plan.¹ The forecast SSP should: