Part 4: Reporting against our outcomes

As reported in our Annual report 2018/19, the most recent results against our outcome indicators show that the overall progress against our outcomes was mostly maintained or improved in 2018/19. The following tables show, by outcome, each indicator and the progress against it, wherever possible, over a three-year period.

This is an excerpt from the Annual report 2018/19. The full report is available on our website, oag.parliament.nz. We report on our progress every year; our annual report is published in October each year and is available on our website.

Outcome 1
Parliament and New Zealanders have trust and confidence in the public sector

Our indicators	Progress	Narrative
Levels of trust in public services (Kiwis Count survey – next publication due June 2020)	Experience-based trust	Overall, New Zealanders' levels of trust based on their personal experience and their perception have improved over time. However, there are statistically significant lower results for Māori. For example, in 2018, trust based on experience was 80% overall, but 70% for Māori. For perception-based trust, the 2018 overall result was 50%. For Māori, it was 35%, with the gap between Māori and non-Māori increasing by 9% since 2012. Source: State Services Commission.
Corruption score and world ranking (Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index)		With a score of 87 out of 100, this result shows that New Zealand's public sector ranked as second least corrupt in the world after Denmark. Although the 2018 score was a slight decline from the previous three years, New Zealand remains one of the top-performing countries in the Index. Source: Transparency International.

Outcome 2
An accountable public sector

Our indicators	Progress	Narrative
Timeliness and quality: Audits completed on time		We use audits completed on time as a substitute measure for public organisations completing their reporting within statutory time frames.
Timeliness and quality: Public release of annual reports (for local authorities only)		More local authorities are meeting their timeliness obligations for public release of their annual reports. These results are reported for the previous financial year.
Timeliness and quality: Unmodified audit opinions		We use unmodified audit opinions as a substitute measure for reliable information. An unmodified audit opinion means that our auditors considered that the public organisation had fairly reflected its performance in its reporting.

Outcome 3
A high-performing public sector

Our indicators	Progress	Narrative
Quality of public services (Kiwis Count survey)		Since 2007, a sample of New Zealanders has been surveyed to measure satisfaction with a wide cross-section of public services through the Kiwis Count survey. New Zealanders hold public services in reasonably high regard, and there has been steady improvement in the satisfaction trends since 2007. The average overall service quality score for 2018 is 77 (out of 100) across the 43 services.