August 2013: The Treasury published "Affording Our Future: Statement on New Zealand’s Long-term Fiscal Position" (the 2013 Statement) in July 2013. The 2013 Statement provides a long-term financial view of the future to 2060 and is the third statement released by the Treasury under the Public Finance Act 1989. We looked at the 2013 Statement, the process used to prepare it, and the underlying financial model and assumptions used to support it as part of our 2012/13 work programme. Overall, we consider that the Treasury has done a good job in preparing the 2013 Statement, and presenting it in a way that is understandable and engaging ...
August 2013: In their long-term plans, local authorities set out their forecast growth, proposed land use, and the infrastructure that might be needed in at least the next 10 years. We have reviewed how five local authorities use “growth charges”, such as development contributions and financial contributions, to fund the assets that they will need for the growth that they expect ...
September 2013, ISSN 1179-8963 (print), ISSN 1179-8971 (online).
October 2013: The Madrid indicators are a set of internationally agreed indicators of a country’s preparedness for an ageing population. The data needed to report on most of the Madrid indicators is available and is mostly collected and reported by public entities. This means that public entities have, at least, a minimum set of demographic data and data about older people that they can use. We were able to produce a profile of older people's circumstances. Although there have been many improvements over time, older people have not experienced these improvements evenly. Women, Pākehā, and people on higher incomes have often (but not always) benefited more than men, non-Pākehā, and people on lower incomes. We identify the helpful data collection and reporting practices that we encountered, and encourage more public entities to adopt these practices where they can to improve accessibility and consistency ...
October 2013: In our view, the Earthquake Commission's (EQC) performance to date has been mixed. It has performed well in managing repair costs and setting the home-repair programme up quickly, but has not performed as well in dealing with homeowners. Although efficiency is clearly important, this report is a timely reminder for EQC and others that being in the public service means serving the needs of people ...
November 2013: The report looks at the arrangement to repair and rebuild the roads and underground water, wastewater, and stormwater pipes in Christchurch. The report examines how effectively and efficiently the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, the New Zealand Transport Agency, and Christchurch City Council are reinstating this “horizontal infrastructure” through an alliance called the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT). SCIRT demonstrates many of the good practice characteristics of alliancing. It is capitalising on its valuable resource of highly trained specialists to develop practical solutions, and project scoping is done well. SCIRT has sound business systems that create operational efficiencies. When relevant variables are considered, SCIRT projects seem reasonably priced ...
November 2013: This report looks at how well regional services planning is working in practice. The Ministry of Health and district health boards have put effort into creating the conditions for success, but regional services planning is not yet business as usual. Overall, we expected to see more tangible examples of services that were planned regionally rather than at a district level, and more evidence that the expected benefits were emerging ...
November 2013: This report looks at how effectively Immigration New Zealand supports new migrants to settle and work in the two to five years after they arrive in New Zealand ...
November 2013: This is a summary of our 420-page inquiry report. We describe how Kaipara District Council managed the Mangawhai community wastewater scheme between 1996 and 2012, as well as the role played by other agencies. The matters this report covers are long and often complex, but overall it is a woeful saga...
November 2013: This report describes how Kaipara District Council managed the Mangawhai community wastewater scheme between 1996 and 2012, as well as the role played by other agencies. The matters this report covers are long and often complex, but overall it is a woeful saga...
December 2013: This report presents the results of our audit of the Government's 2012/13 financial statements and reports on the results of our review of whether government expenditure was appropriately authorised...
December 2013: This is the first time we have published a report focused on public entities in the social sector. We draw attention to the work this Office does, outline why we are interested in changes in the social sector, and share our thoughts on where we might focus our effort in the future...
December 2013: We found strengths in how the Department is working to reduce reoffending. The Department's approach to managing offenders is based on, and supported by, international research. It has a culture that values evidence. The Department also continuously assesses the effectiveness and efficiency of its interventions, learns from success and failures, and uses that information for improvements...
December 2013: This is a short document for finance and strategy staff in tertiary education institutions, designed to help them continue to improve their service performance reporting. Organisations that report their service performance well have integrated their strategic planning and objectives with their reporting requirements. They use both these processes to enhance their governance, prioritisation, decision-making, and overall performance...
December 2013: This article summarises the progress that the Ministry of Health and district health boards have made in responding to the recommendations we made in 2011. Our 2011 report was about scheduled (or "elective") services (assessments and treatment)...
February 2014: This report focuses on the ability of Crown-owned companies’ governance systems to support “future thinking” and to realise and adjust strategies accordingly.
March 2014: We reviewed the Department’s progress in implementing the three recommendations in our progress report, "Public entities’ progress in implementing the Auditor-General’s recommendations 2012". By early 2012, the Department had addressed two of the recommendations. However, it had experienced delays in replacing the old system for managing grant applications...
March 2014: In 2011, we made four recommendations for the Treasury to prepare for potentially large and complex initiatives that might require rapid implementation. The Treasury has responded positively to our recommendations about improving project management and implementing a planning, monitoring, escalation, and reporting framework.
March 2014: Delta lost about $5.9 million on the Luggate investment and has projected a loss of about $2.8 million for Jacks Point. The report identifies that there was too much focus on the likely profits and not enough consideration of risks of the market slowing or an exit strategy if things went wrong. It also suggests that Delta should have got independent advice before investing.
March 2014: The Auditor-General's briefing to the Commerce Committee on Solid Energy. ISBN 978-0-478-41065-5 (online).
April 2014: This report presents the aggregate results of our audit of the central government agencies for 2012/13 ...
May 2014: This article describes the progress that has been made in responding to the Auditor-General's earlier recommendations...
May 2014: Up to 28 February 2014, we completed nearly 2450 audits of schools’ financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2012. This report presents the results from our audits of those statements. This report also includes an overview of the financial health of schools as a whole, and articles on state-integrated schools, Kura Kaupapa Māori, and changes to schools’ financial reporting requirements...
May 2014: This report describes the results of our 2012/13 audits of entities in the health sector and our recent performance audit work to assess the effectiveness of particular aspects of the public health system...
May 2014: In this report, the Auditor-General, Lyn Provost summarises her views on the theme "Our future needs – is the public sector ready?" using common threads drawn from her Office’s audit work and reports published during the 18 months from June 2012 to December 2013...
May 2014: In this report, we look at the Board’s progress in responding to our recommendations. The Board has taken our recommendations seriously and has worked hard to address them. The action that it has taken has moved it onto a more sure administrative and legal footing. Overall, we saw much less to concern us during our follow-up work than we did in the period preceding our 2010 report...
May 2014: ISBN 978-0-478-41073-0 (print), ISBN 978-0-478-41074-7 (online).
May 2014: Overall, Watercare strives to provide its customers with good customer service, and it has been largely successful. In our view, it has been largely successful. Watercare inherited a complex set of tariff arrangements and has been progressively standardising them. However, Watercare could improve some aspects of its performance – in particular, by providing its customers with better information about how it operates and what customers can expect...
June 2014: This article describes the progress that has been made in responding to the Auditor-General's earlier recommendations...
June 2014: This article describes the progress that has been made in responding to the Auditor-General's earlier recommendations...
Commentary on Affording Our Future: Statement on New Zealand's Long-term Fiscal Position
