This study is a stakeholder consultation about recovery policies and practices in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Six consumer advocates and five policymakers were interviewed on whether evaluating mental health services’ adherence to recovery philosophy would be useful in facilitating implementation of national recovery policies and the shape and function of such evaluation. Two focus groups and six individual interviews were conducted and transcribed. Textual data was subjected to software-assisted and manual thematic analyses. One of the key findings is participants’ lack of confidence in the current implementation of the recovery paradigm within the New Zealand mental health sector. Participants generally supported the idea of measuring recovery orientation at organisational level, although for different reasons and with reservations. Evaluating the process of service delivery appeared to be preferable to measuring outcomes.