Our services
Five services contribute to our outcomes and impacts. We:
- provide advice and support for effective parliamentary scrutiny;
- monitor spending against parliamentary appropriations (our Controller function);
- audit information reported by public organisations about their performance;
- carry out inquiries into matters of public interest; and
- assess public sector performance and accountability.
In 2021/22, performance results for the services we provided were mixed. We have exceeded or met some performance targets and not others – much of this is due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2022/23, as we move through addressing the challenges in our current environment, we will aim to ensure that, where practical to do so, our performance for each service improves.
Our indicators for service delivery cover the main dimensions of performance: quantity, timeliness, and quality.
Service 1: Provide advice and support for effective parliamentary scrutiny
Select committees valued our briefings for their scrutiny of public organisations and the 2022 Budget. But Covid-19 and a nation-wide auditor shortage led to delays completing annual audits.
Service 2: Monitor spending against parliamentary appropriations (our Controller function)
We issued all of our Controller reports on time.
Service 3: Audit information reported by public organisations about their performance
93% of our auditors achieved a quality assurance grade of at least “satisfactory”. But we did not achieve our timeliness targets for audit reports and the number of audits in arrears nearly doubled, mostly because of schools.
Service 4: Carry out inquiries into matters of public interest
We achieved our timeliness targets for two of our three categories of inquiry work, and we maintained the amount of work we were able to complete, despite Covid-19 disruptions.
Service 5: Assess public sector performance and accountability
We completed six performance audits and published 15 other pieces of work. Audited public organisations continue to rate our performance as at least “satisfactory”, but we didn’t meet some of our timeliness targets for our performance audits.