In September 2022, the New Zealand Productivity Commission released the draft report of its A fair chance for all inquiry. At that point these causal diagrams were commissioned as a way of helping to summarise the complex interactions and tensions that had been identified.

These diagrams are intended as a way of developing an integrated picture of the interconnected variables contributing to people’s persistent experience of disadvantage, particularly as they pertain to the Public Management System. They should be read in conjunction with the inquiry interim and final reports, which provide the analysis and sources for the ideas and concepts shown in the diagrams.

The causal diagrams were developed from the knowledge that the inquiry team had generated during their inquiry, as well as a selection of the sources they used. These sources are listed in the references section.