Our recent work
Insights into local government: 2023
Councils are facing rising inflation and interest rates, workforce shortages, and climate change. Some are still affected by recent severe weather events that caused significant damage and disruption throughout the North Island. How councils respond to these challenges depends on what they and their communities can afford...
Latest blog post
Workplace bullying and harassment are issues that no organisation can afford to overlook, as they fundamentally undermine organisational integrity. From incivility to integrity: Addressing the hidden costs of workplace bullying covers the most recent Leaders Integrity Forum.
Regional councils’ relationships with iwi and hapū for freshwater management
In 2019, we looked at how effectively four regional councils were managing freshwater quality. We followed up with them and spoke with iwi and hapū representatives to see what progress the regional councils had made in response to our recommendations.
What we do
The Controller and Auditor-General is an Officer of Parliament. This means he is independent of the Government and can't be directed by whichever political party is holding power.
The Auditor-General has two business units – the Office of the Auditor-General (this site) and Audit New Zealand (auditnz.parliament.nz).
Together, our work gives Parliament and the public an independent view of how public organisations are operating. That independence, along with watching the spending, is why the Auditor-General is sometimes called the public's watchdog.
Here's the video transcript, and there's more information in the About us section.
Read about our priorities
Strengthening our core assurance role
We want to ensure that the public audit system is sustainable in the long term, that we can continue to deliver our mandatory audit and assurance services, and that we can modernise our audit function and respond to changes affecting the audit profession.
Increasing our impact with public organisations
We want to increase our impact by increasing our focus on topics that are important to public accountability. There are key stakeholders in the public accountability system who can influence change, so we will consider how we continue to engage with, support, and build relationships with them to maximise the impact of our work.
Enhancing our impact in te ao Māori
We want to continue to build trust and confidence among Māori in our role, and for our work to have increased relevance to, and impact for, Māori. We also want to influence the public sector to improve the public accountability system to reflect the uniqueness of New Zealand.
What does an auditor do?
An auditor checks that information organisations report annually is reliable, and lets us know if it isn’t. (Here’s the video transcript.)
What is the Controller function?
The Controller checks that money is spent lawfully, and can "turn off the money tap" if it isn't. (Here's the video transcript.)