Auditor-General's overview

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangarangatanga maha o te motu, tēnā koutou.

I am pleased to present my Office’s annual plan for 2024/25. This has been finalised after feedback on our draft annual plan, which we presented to the Speaker and to Parliament on 30 April 2024.

The public sector operates in a challenging and dynamic environment. Our annual plan reflects these challenges and where we believe we can best use our role to influence positive change.

In determining our work programme, we have drawn from a range of sources. These include our audits of every public organisation, our engagements with select committees and members of Parliament, and advice from our advisory groups and our rōpū Māori.

We surveyed members of the public on topics that are relevant to our strategy. For our 2023/24 survey, we asked New Zealanders what they would like us to include in our work programme. Survey respondents were most interested in health services, justice (law and order), education, and housing and urban development. We have work planned in each of these sectors.

Our annual plan is also focused on implementing the priorities in my strategic intentions to 2028, which are:

• strengthening our core assurance role;
• increasing our impact with public organisations (by encouraging more meaningful performance reporting, an increased focus on value for money, a long-term view in planning and decision-making, and strong integrity practices);
• enhancing our impact in te ao Māori; and
• building on our reputation as a source of trusted information.

We will build on the success of initiatives from previous years while maintaining capacity to focus on emerging issues. This includes increasing the number of rapid performance audits (where we report on matters of immediate public interest within a target of 12 weeks), hosting more events that bring public sector leaders and experts together to share knowledge and good practice, an integrity-focused performance audit using a new methodology based on our integrity framework, and continuing work to influence improvements in performance reporting and accountability.

What we heard about our draft annual plan

In finalising this plan, we sought feedback from the public sector, Parliament, and the public. Most of the feedback we received supported our proposed work programme.

There is significant interest in our work on influencing better performance reporting. The feedback we received included requests for more guidance and clarity on what good performance reporting looks like. In response, we have adjusted our plan and added work to provide more guidance on good practice, particularly in aspects of performance reporting that present ongoing challenges.

We also received feedback about the challenges facing the local government sector. In response we plan to do more to share our insights and work closely with local government sector groups. We have also adjusted the scope of some of our planned work in response to feedback.

Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts on our draft annual plan. We have included a summary in Appendix 1 of the changes we made in response to that feedback.

I thank my staff for their work in preparing and finalising this plan. I also thank Parliament, the public, and the public sector for your interest in, and support for, the work we do. Your feedback has been important to us in finalising this plan.

Nāku noa, nā

John Ryan
Controller and Auditor-General | Tumuaki o te Mana Arotake

21 June 2024