The problems caused by the absence of a service-wide"corporate capacity have been recognized in New Zealand. where NPM reforms have been in place for rwo decades. Abse The initial reforms eliminated much, if not all, of the role and capacities of the central pet sonnel agency. The State Services Commissioner in 1999 asked that he be given responsibil ity to develop a solution to the absence of a corporate capacity in the public service. Since then, the New Zealand public service has moved to address a wide range of service-wide HRM issues from an increasingly explicit corporate perspective