Government Trends 2026: The future of government is now

Deloitte Global’s Government Trends 2026 report, published by the Deloitte Global Centre for Government Insights and informed by perspectives from New Zealand public sector leaders, explores how governments around the world are rethinking how they work in order to provide better outcomes for people.

This year’s report moves beyond traditional reform and digitisation, focusing instead on redesigning operating system of government including the rules, workflows, decision rights, and learning loops that lead to better outcomes. This shift is taking place as governments around the world face rapid advances in artificial intelligence, tighter budgets, and changing citizen expectations.

These trends resonate with New Zealand as there is a growing need to make systems easier to work with, make decisions faster, and focus more clearly on the outcomes people care about, rather than the way organisations are structured.

Adaptive by design

Government operating models were built for stability, scale and clear lines of accountability. Today, they must also deliver adaptability. Rather than relying on periodic restructures, leading governments are redesigning how work is organised to enable continuous adaptation as priorities change.

This adaptive operating model is built on three pillars:

• Platforms: Shared, reusable capabilities such as data, infrastructure, standards and core services that reduce duplication and enable integration across agencies.
• Pods: Small, multidisciplinary, time-bound teams that come together around specific outcomes and disband once the job is done.
• People practices: Workforce models that give people the authority to make decisions, allow skills to move where they are most needed, and focus leadership on creating value rather than managing hierarchy.

This model complements, rather than replaces, stable service delivery. Governments will always need reliable, standardised operations. What changes is how they evolve around them.

The next operating model for government

In New Zealand, the need for a more adaptive operating model is already well understood. In this year’s report, New Zealand Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche describes a public service with strong people, but one constrained by the systems around them. He argues for a fundamental redesign, orienting government around the lives of the people it serves rather than long-standing organisational boundaries.

Digital remains an important enabler, not as an end in itself, but in supporting agencies to work together more easily, share capabilities, reduce duplication and deliver better outcomes day-to-day.

New Zealand leading by example

New Zealand’s Border Executive Board (created to coordinate and strengthen border management), featured in this year’s report, shows what an adaptive model looks like in practice.

By bringing decision-making together across agencies, the Board replaced fragmented approaches with coordinated leadership focused on shared outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this made it easier to act quickly and consistently, aligning data, processes and accountability to support initiatives such as vaccination and changes to border settings.

Rather than restructuring agencies or implementing a single system, the emphasis was on enablement. Shared platforms, coordinated governance and outcome-led teams allowed government to respond at pace as conditions evolved.

Adaptability comes less from changing organisational charts and more from designing systems that allow authority, capability and people to move to where they create the most value.

About Government Trends

Government Trends is Deloitte Global’s annual report on the future of government, published by the Deloitte Centre for Government Insights. Each edition explores the most significant trends shaping public sector operations around the world and their implications for government delivery in the years ahead.

Drawing on insights from global practitioners, interviews with public sector leaders, and Deloitte research, the report helps government leaders understand and apply large-scale changes to improve delivery and outcomes for people.