Annual Plan for the year ending 30 June 2003

Introduction by the Controller and Auditor-General²

This Annual Plan is designed to provide a comprehensive description of the projected performance of the Audit Office³ for 2002-03. Information is also provided about the role and goals of the Office so the Office’s 2002-03 plans can be seen in context. The Plan is in five parts:

• Part 1 provides a brief explanation of the organisation, purpose, outcomes, and outputs (products and services) of the Audit Office. Information is included to show how the Office’s 2002-03 plans relate to its role.
• Part 2 provides information about the goals of the Audit Office and key strategies to discharge its statutory duties. This information is included to show how the Office’s 2002-03 plans relate to longer-term goals, and is based on the Office’s 2001-2004 Strategic Business Plan, which was presented to the Officers of Parliament and Finance and Expenditure Committees in November 2000.
• Part 3 summarises the Audit Office’s proposed work programme for 2002-03. It sets out the Strategic Audit Planning process which underpins the programme, and then describes the outputs that will be provided by the Office. Included in this Part are brief descriptions of performance audits which are high on our priority list.
• Part 4 summarises plans in relation to stewardship of the resources entrusted to the Audit Office. It describes plans for organisational management and development, and summarises the expected financial results for 2002-03.
• Part 5 contains the forecast financial statements of the Audit Office for 2002-03, and includes detailed forecast statements of service performance for each output to be provided by the Office.

2: The Controller and Auditor-General, in his personal role, is usually referred to simply as “the Auditor-General” in the rest of this report.

3: “The Audit Office” is the term used in this report to refer to all of the resources used by the Controller and Auditor-General in pursuit of his role (see also page 11).