Responses to our recommendations about improving Crown entity monitoring

20 June 2024: We asked public organisations for an update on their response to recommendations we made in 2022 about improving monitoring arrangements for Crown entities.

We requested this update because we want to provide public transparency on progress with addressing our recommendations.

In 2009, our report How government departments monitor Crown entities looked at how well departments were supporting Ministers in carrying out monitoring activities four years after the Crown Entities Act 2004 was passed.

In 2022, our report Improving value through better Crown entity monitoring took a broader look at whether monitoring arrangements for statutory Crown entities are effective, including what improvements had been made since 2009.

We looked at whether:

  • monitoring departments have a comprehensive framework for monitoring statutory Crown entities;
  • the monitoring activity is appropriate and proportionate to the Crown entity being monitored; and
  • monitoring departments effectively use the information they get from monitoring.

Overall, we found that some aspects of monitoring had improved since our 2009 audit. There is good guidance available and a strong community of practice, and monitoring departments facilitate key processes well in serving Ministers and Crown entities.

However, we found that there are still issues in the Crown entity monitoring system. In our 2022 report, we made six detailed recommendations for addressing our findings. This includes the minimum standards that improved monitoring frameworks should meet.

Read what the Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission has said about its progress implementing our recommendations, including its observations about how other organisations have implemented our recommendations:

  • the full text of the Public Service Commission's response in HTML | as a PDF (7 pages, 219KB)

Read our summary of what the monitoring departments and Crown entities have said about their progress.

We have not audited the information in this update.

At this stage, we do not plan to carry out any further performance audit work to follow up on our 2022 report. Our Sector Managers will continue to seek further updates from the Public Service Commission, monitoring departments, and Crown entities as part of their usual engagement.