Response to our recommendations about leading the housing and urban development system

8 October 2024: We asked the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for an update on its response to recommendations we made in 2023 about its leadership of the housing and urban development system.

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

In 2023, our report Leading New Zealand’s approach to housing and urban development looked at how well placed the Ministry was at that time to carry out its system leadership role.

Overall, we found that the Ministry had largely set up the framework and governance arrangements to support its system leadership role. We said that the Ministry should shift its focus to leading work on its strategies and improving the system’s performance.

We recommended that Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga – the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development:

  • continue to improve its understanding of the housing and urban development system's current and projected performance, and regularly report on it to the public and those responsible for influencing housing and urban development outcomes;
  • strengthen system governance by:
    • ensuring that the Chief Executives' Housing Group members agree on how they will provide collective oversight for achieving the Government Policy Statement on Housing and Urban Development; and
    • providing better reporting to support decision-making, including on current and expected housing and urban development outcomes, delivery milestones, and delivery and strategic risks; and
  • continue to regularly assess whether its systems, processes, and capabilities enable it to lead the housing and urban development system and, in particular, to monitor, understand, predict, and influence performance.

Read what Ministry of Housing and Urban Development has said about its progress with those recommendations:

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 2023 report. Our Sector Manager will continue to seek further updates from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development as part of their usual engagement.