Category: Controller and Auditor General

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Insights and reflections from OAG work: An integrity perspective

Source: Controller and Auditor General

This webinar is intended for Tier 2 public sector leaders, particularly those who lead corporate service functions, chief financial officers, and integrity officers. At this interactive webinar we will share insights from our integrity-related work over the course of 2023. Our staff will present important findings from our recent performance audits, inquiries, and good practice guidance. They will point out opportunities to improve and share some helpful tips from our guidance.

Our presenters 

Melanie Webb is our Assistant Auditor-General, Legal, Policy, and Inquiries. Her group provides legal advice and support across all aspects of the work of the Office of the Auditor-General and Audit New Zealand, and participates in other operational work of the Auditor-General (including, good practice guides, advice to Parliament, engagement with government on new laws, and input on government proposals and policies).

Leeanne McAviney is our Assistant Auditor-General, Sector Performance. Her group carries out performance audits under section 16 of the Public Audit Act 2001, undertakes research and special studies on matters of interest to, and about, the performance of the public sector, and is building the data and analytics capability of the Office to better understand the performance of the public sector and support the wider work of the Office. 

Registration

Please email events@oag.parliament.nz to register and receive MS Team details.

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A culture of integrity: Public sector challenges in a post-Covid-19 world

Source: Controller and Auditor General

This webinar has been designed for chief executives of public entities. Our guest panel of international experts will share their insights on ethical leadership, decision-making in uncertain times, and the impact of the political system on public servants across the world. This is an opportunity to reflect on the context in which globally public servants are operating, the risks and challenges faced, and what that means for integrity.

Our panelists

Sue Robertson was the Head, Australian Public Service (APS) Integrity Taskforce, international law expert and former adviser to the United Nations. The APS Integrity Taskforce was established in February 2023. It examined culture, systems, and accountability, and how the relationships between each one shape human behaviour. It published its final report Louder than words: an APS integrity action plan in November 2023.

Paul ‘t Hart is a Professor of Public Administration at Utrecht University, and a member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy of The Netherlands. Paul’s research, teaching and consulting covers political and public sector leadership, policy evaluation, public accountability, and crisis management. Paul’s focus was on public servant leaders and the system level challenges they face, outdated structures of spending and accountability, and the impact of the political system on public servant leaders.

Tracey McIntosh, MNZM, Ngāi Tūhoe, is a Professor Indigenous Studies in Te Wānanga o Waipapa at the University of Auckland and Chief Science Advisor at Ministry of Social Development and a Commissioner of Te Kāhui Tātari Ture: Criminal Cases Review Commission. She was the former Co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence. Tracey sits on a range of advisory groups and boards for government and community organisations. Tracey has a commitment to addressing issues that concern Māori and draws on a critical Indigenous studies framework.

The Auditor-General, John Ryan, will moderate this webinar.

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Our intentions: Immigration New Zealand’s decision-making for managing skilled residence visas

Source: Controller and Auditor General

Attracting skilled migrants is a strategic priority for New Zealand in a globally competitive market for people with particular skills. Skilled migrants fill areas where skills are in short supply and are vital to keep New Zealand’s economy working well.

This system requires careful management. Migrants’ experience of the immigration system matters because it can be a factor in determining whether they connect to, and decide to settle in, New Zealand. People with the skills the economy needs for the longer term can be in high demand in many countries. At the same time, visa decision-making processes have to support New Zealand’s safety and security.

Balancing all these interests is easier if everyone understands how well the system is working. Migrants, their advisers, and employers need to be confident that visas are being processed fairly, speedily, and consistently. It is important for the public to be confident that the immigration system is being monitored effectively using reliable information.

What we are focusing on

We will focus on how effectively Immigration New Zealand is managing its decision-making process for applicants for skilled residence visas.

This will include how effectively Immigration New Zealand uses information internally to improve its performance and externally to show how the skilled residence visa system is working.

We will not be looking at the merits of any individual decisions.

The difference we expect to make

We aim to highlight the strengths in Immigration New Zealand’s process for making decisions about skilled residence visas and, where appropriate, suggest where improvements can be made.

We anticipate that our work will influence more meaningful and useful reporting by Immigration New Zealand on its performance. This is critical to building and maintaining confidence in the immigration system and part of our wider work to influence the quality of performance reporting in the public sector.

This audit will result in a report to Parliament, which we will also publish on our website. We expect to complete this work in the second half of 2024.

Please use the feedback form on the right if you would like to speak to a staff member about this performance audit, make a suggestion, or ask a question.

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Integrity Day 2024

Source: Controller and Auditor General

What are we doing?

We’re supporting Integrity Day on February 16, 2024. We’re hosting two webinars – one for chief executives that features an international panel of speakers, and one for “tier 2” leaders in the public sector. 

Why are we doing this?

One of our strategic priorities is to increase our impact with public organisations through supporting strong organisational integrity practices. To achieve this, we need to raise awareness of the importance of integrity in the public sector, for audiences to understand why it matters and to proactively create opportunities for conversations in public sector agencies about integrity issues. 

The change we want to see by 2028 is that public sector leaders will:

  • be taking a system approach to integrity issues and developing strong organisational practices, including reporting;
  • have an understanding of te ao Māori perspectives on integrity and what this means for public organisations; and
  • be holding themselves and others to account for ethical leadership.
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Leaders Integrity Forums

Source: Controller and Auditor General

If you’re a senior public leader and would like to attend these sessions, please get in touch: anne.gilbert@tinz.org.nz

Organised by Transparency International New Zealand and often held at our offices, the Leaders Integrity Forums are hosted in-person and/or online to senior leaders in the public sector. The discussions are not made available publicly, to encourage free and frank sharing of challenges and solutions or approaches. 

After each session, we usually publish a blog post that talks (at a high level) about the discussion and the useful aspects that arose.

The 2023 forums

During the first half of 2023, the topics for the in-person and online forums covered: 

  • Maintaining a stewardship role of integrity of identity
  • Kawanatanga: whakaharatau rangapū | Governance: how to put partnership into practice
  • Leading in Practice
  • Fraud Awareness – Red Flags and Risks
  • The Balancing Act: Reacting decisively and maintaining transparency
  • The Challenge of Changing Attitudes and Behaviour
  • The Challenges of Intergenerational Fiscal Transfers.

Earlier forums

These topics were covered in 2022 and there’s a link if we wrote a blog post about the forum.

And these topics were covered in 2020 and 2021 (with a link if we wrote a blog post about it):

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Strengthening collaborative efforts by legislatures and Supreme Audit Institutions

Source: Controller and Auditor General

Public access to information is a critical part of the democratic process, allowing people to contribute to scrutiny of government performance. The effectiveness of the relationship between the Legislature, its committees, and the Supreme Audit Institution plays a major role in the integrity of this scrutiny.

The Legislature’s deliberations on audit findings supports better public awareness of issues, improved transparency by public organisations, and more accountability from the government to the public.

This webinar will explore the value of strengthening collaborative efforts between Supreme Audit Institutions with their Legislature, Parliamentary Accounts Committee, and other legislative committees. Our panelists are:

  1.  The Honourable Tina Pupuke Browne, Leader of the Opposition, Cook Islands, member of the Public Accounts Committee;
  2.  Mr Kaleb S. Udui Junior, Minister of Finance of Palau;
  3.  Mr Andrew McConnell, Deputy Auditor-General of New Zealand; and
  4.  Mr Giovanni Fesuiai, Sector Manager, Parliamentary Group, Office of the Auditor-General of New Zealand.

To register, email international@oag.govt.nz by 20 February.

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Overseeing the Members’ Interests Act

Source: Controller and Auditor General

Our role in administering the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968 includes:

  • deciding applications for exemptions from, or declarations about, the discussing and voting rule in the Act;
  • deciding applications for the approval of contracts worth more than $25,000 in a financial year;
  • providing guidance to elected council members and officers, to help them comply with the Act in particular situations; and
  • investigating and prosecuting alleged offences against the Act.

The Auditor-General regularly publishes guidance for council members about how to comply with the Act.

See also: Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968: A guide for members of local authorities on managing financial conflicts of interest

Application form: Application under section 3 of the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968

Email us: lamia@oag.parliament.nz

Page last updated: 21November 2023

Our LAMIA resources

Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968: A guide for members of local authorities on managing financial conflicts of interest

June 2020: The Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968 (the Act) is somewhat out of date and difficult to understand, and the rules are not always easy to apply in a modern local government context. That is why we have written this plain English guide. We want members who are covered by the Act, and those advising them, to be aware of the Act’s rules and the steps they need to take to ensure that they do not inadvertently breach them. This guide also explains our statutory functions under the Act.

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Do your measures measure up?

Source: Controller and Auditor General

Performance reporting by public organisations is crucial to enabling the public and Parliament to determine whether public money is being spent appropriately. When done well, this reporting clearly explains how well the public sector has used funding to deliver services, achieve outcomes, and ultimately improve the lives of New Zealanders.

We have found through our work that it has long been unclear to the public and Parliament what outcomes are being achieved with public spending – about $160 billion in 2022/23. To maintain trust and confidence in government, we all need to understand what value we are getting from our taxes, and what difference it is making to our lives.

In March 2023, the Auditor-General wrote to chief executives of public organisations, noting these concerns and asking chief executives to significantly improve the quality of their performance reporting. They were asked to develop measures for the 2023 Budget that would provide meaningful information on how spending is contributing to outcomes. This Budget was also an opportunity to improve their performance information to meet a new financial standard on service performance reporting.

After this, we focused on the quality of performance reporting in the advice we gave to Parliament about the Government’s 2023/24 spending plan. This plan is set out in the Budget and examined by select committees through the Estimates of Appropriations process.

The Estimates process is important because it is the mechanism through which Parliament can scrutinise Ministers and organisations before it approves Budgets. But the Estimates are just one component of an overall performance reporting framework. It should be clear to readers where the other meaningful performance information can be found.

For the 2023 Budget, we focused on spending by public organisations in six key Votes, totalling over $101 billion in annual spending. These were:

  • Vote Health;
  • Vote Business, Science and Innovation;
  • Vote Social Development;
  • Vote Education;
  • Vote Transport; and
  • Vote Agriculture, Biosecurity, Fisheries and Food Safety.

We chose these because of their scale and the important role they play in achieving critical outcomes for New Zealanders.

We found some improvements to performance information, with some examples of good reporting. However, we also found three weaknesses that urgently need addressing:

  1. Measures that are not meaningful or comprehensive.
  2. Gaps in measuring what difference is being made.
  3. Poor measures for assessing the stewardship, oversight, and monitoring functions of departments.

We share some examples of these below. We also share examples of where organisations are getting it right. These are based on briefings we prepared for select committees for the 2023/24 Estimates, and are publicly available via our website and www.parliament.nz.

The matters we identified and set out here are often not limited to the organisations we have highlighted. As public organisations plan their performance measures for this financial year and beyond, we encourage them to develop meaningful measures that tell the public and Parliament a clear, compelling story about whether their spending is achieving better outcomes for New Zealanders. The examples below can help.

Measures need to be meaningful and comprehensive

Performance measures should give a comprehensive assessment of how well an organisation is delivering its services and making a difference for New Zealanders. Measures should give the public and Parliament clear and easy-to-understand information about how well an organisation is performing.

Measures should focus on what is important to those who use government services and cover all the organisation’s functions and operations.

Across the Votes, we found many appropriations with measures that are focused on process, inward-looking, and not meaningful to the public and Parliament.

For example, some of the measures include:

  • the percentage of funding applications processed and approved;
  • funding being drawn down and utilised for the purposes and on the terms agreed to by Cabinet;
  • the percentage of forecast investment allocated each year; and
  • the percentage of contracts monitored against their milestones.

These kinds of measures simply describe the activities and busyness of the organisation. They do not give a sense of how well the organisation is providing services and what difference is being made through these activities.

We also found measures that did not comprehensively cover performance. For example:

  • The Budget includes a small number of performance measures relevant to mental health (such as the number of people who have access through the Access and Choice programme), but the information is not a sufficient assessment of what is intended to be achieved through funding for mental health. For example, it is not clear what the actual targets are for coverage and access to tailored services for different groups, including Māori, Pacific, and youth.
  • The Ministry of Education is funded just over $16 million for support and resources for parents and the community. However, the related measure (the percentage of families receiving targeted support who consider they are more confident to support their children’s learning) is limited to parents in a targeted 10-week parent education programme. It is hard to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of the Ministry’s overall support to parents and the community based on measuring the performance of a single programme.
  • Most of the Ministry of Social Development’s work to administer the benefits system, improve employment outcomes, and provide or enable community services is funded through two pools of money that they are allocated in the Budget. Although there are some meaningful performance measures for this money, some key services have dimensions of performance that are not measured. For example, the purpose of the category Administering Income Support ($465 million in 2023/24) includes assessing, paying, and reviewing entitlements; collecting balances owed by clients; and administering international social security agreements. There are two measures in total, covering timeliness and accuracy of the assessment of benefits, but none for other dimensions of performance such as the reliability of payments or the client experience of the service. We also note that, although included in the description of outputs, there are no measures in this appropriation for collecting balances owed or administering international agreements, although there are measures related to balances owed in another appropriation.

There are gaps in measuring what difference is being made

Many of us want to know if, and how, services and activities delivered by the public sector are leading to better outcomes for New Zealanders.

For many appropriations, public organisations are required to set out what difference they seek to make (that is, the impact or outcomes they aim to achieve) and how this will be assessed. Having meaningful ways of assessing whether they are making this difference is critical to supporting trust and confidence in the public sector.

We found that measures that are meant to set out what is intended to be achieved often contained gaps.

The wider performance reporting framework for spending under Vote Transport has meaningful and appropriate information about what value is being achieved. For example, the transport sector’s outcomes framework is supported by 37 indicators to measure and report on progress against outcomes. However, performance measures for several new initiatives have not yet been developed. The measure associated with the $275 million in new road funding in response to the January 2023 floods and Cyclone Gabrielle are focused on the administration of funds. The $55 million allocated for improving resilience of the roading network, in response to climate-related weather events, is also administrative. Because outputs for both initiatives were in the early stages of development at the time of the Budget, we were advised that the performance measures for both will be revisited through the 2023/24 Supplementary Estimates Process.

The Ministry for Primary Industries has budgeted $365.2 million for biosecurity in 2023/24. The performance measures for these appropriations focus on the Ministry’s activities to prevent, monitor, and manage biosecurity risks. One, for example, measures the “percentage of international air passengers that comply with biosecurity requirements by the time they leave the Biosecurity Control Area at the airport.” The measures, while helpful, focus more on the Ministry’s activities rather than the impact of these activities and whether they resulted in better protection from biosecurity risks.

Conversely, performance information for the fisheries and food safety appropriations generally provide a meaningful assessment of how well the Ministry is delivering its services and achieving better outcomes. The performance measures in these two areas include a mix of measures that assess how well the Ministry is delivering its services and the outcomes it intends to achieve — for example, the rate of a common food-borne illness per 100,000 people, and the percentage of scientifically evaluated fish stocks with no sustainability issues.

In Vote Education, performance measures for the primary and secondary education system focus largely on inputs and participation rates. It is unclear how they assess the quality of education the system is delivering.

The funds administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment under the Regional Development portfolio mostly involve multiple Votes and appropriations. These are administered by Kānoa – Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit as well as other agencies. Consequently, there are different levels of reporting across the different funds that are mostly managed by Kānoa, with some fund reporting being managed by other agencies. In addition to different project deliverables and milestones, there are different ways the outcomes and benefits of projects are captured in the reporting across the different funds. We note that across the Vote, the public and Parliament can find it challenging to understand what has been achieved with the funding and how the funding programmes are contributing to the intended outcomes, such as lifting regional productivity potential.

Measures that assess the stewardship, oversight, and monitoring functions of departments must improve

New Zealand faces a set of increasingly complex and long-term challenges, and the public sector is looking to work closer together to solve these problems.

Several of the organisations we focused on are lead departments – or “stewards” – of different sectors. These departments have a leadership role. They provide advice, monitor, and report on what outcomes are being achieved across the systems they oversee.

Performance measures and reporting for these functions and appropriations were often inward-looking. This reporting is not particularly meaningful to the public or Parliament.

Performance measures for the Ministry of Education’s oversight of the education system include measuring timeliness of responses to Parliamentary questions and the number of webpage visits/downloads of new research reports. They do not provide a meaningful assessment of how well the Ministry is providing effective oversight of the education system.

The Ministry of Social Development has an important leadership role in the social sector as a steward of benefit and employment support functions. Appropriations that relate to stewardship include Policy Advice ($22.26 million in 2023/24), Data, Analytics and Evidence Services ($44.65 million in 2023/24), and Planning, Correspondence and Monitoring ($6.27 million in 2023/24). In our view, the performance measures for these appropriations are inward-looking – for example, measuring the quality and timeliness of policy advice and other services to Ministers. They do not provide a meaningful assessment of how well the Ministry is providing effective oversight of the system. The Ministry provides a substantial amount of useful information on its website and in publications. We think there are opportunities to incorporate these activities more formally into the performance framework.

The performance information for the Ministry of Transport’s stewardship role, including oversight of the Vote, does not enable an assessment of how well the Ministry is addressing major funding and financing risks faced by the sector now and into the future, such as with the National Land Transport Programme.

Our conclusion

Overall, we found that the public and Parliament are not given the performance information they need to effectively scrutinise how public money will be spent. It is difficult for the public to use this information to understand what their taxes are being spent on. This needs to change.

Based on our observations, changes to Standing Orders for the 2023-26 Parliamentary term will facilitate more and deeper scrutiny of public organisations. The quality of their performance measures and reporting will need to greatly improve to give Parliament the information it needs to hold them to account.

We urge public organisations to develop meaningful, comprehensive, and relevant performance measures for their appropriations. Parliament can then use these measures to effectively scrutinise proposed public expenditure during the Estimates process, and both the public and Parliament can use them to hold the public sector to account for its performance.

The Office has good practice resources dedicated to improving performance reporting. These include guidance on setting performance reporting frameworks, the essential qualities of performance reporting, and what makes for good performance indicators.

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Our intentions: How well councils are implementing climate change actions

Source: Controller and Auditor General

Climate changes are impacting on lives and society globally and in New Zealand. These changes impact most areas of public policy and a substantial and increasing amount of public money is being spent to respond to a changing climate.

Climate change means that New Zealand is at risk of experiencing more frequent and intense extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and increased droughts, all of which have significant economic, social, and environmental consequences.

Many public organisations have climate change-related roles and responsibilities. Councils have a significant role in meeting climate change challenges and in understanding, planning for, and responding to the effects of climate change.

What we’re focusing on

Our performance audit will look at how well a selection of councils are responding to climate change. We will look at how they have translated climate change strategies, commitments, and plans into action.

To do this, we will look at how councils identify actions to respond to climate change impacts, how they are implementing those actions, and how they are reporting progress to their communities.

We have selected four councils to look at: Environment Canterbury, Christchurch City Council, Nelson City Council, and Whanganui District Council.

The difference we expect to make

We recognise that all councils are at varying stages of progress in responding to climate change impacts and face a range of issues in doing so. This work will have a particular focus on identifying examples of good practice, including effective collaboration with other public and private organisations, and in examining how lessons have been learned and how challenges have been overcome.

We anticipate that our findings will help other councils to build and maintain momentum in their response to climate change. This work will also support councils to engage more effectively with their communities about their climate change actions.

We expect to complete this work in mid-2024.

Please use the feedback form on the right if you’d like to speak to a staff member about this performance audit, make a suggestion, or ask a question.