Video transcript: Improving trust, promoting value: Working at the Office of the Auditor-General
Title: Office of the Controller and Auditor-General logo
Title: Improving trust, promoting value: Working at the Office of the Auditor-General
Gareth Ellis, Assistant Auditor-General, Parliamentary Group:
I think one of the best things about working at the OIG is the fact we've got this great big helicopter view of the whole of the public sector and what that means is that no two days are the same. I don't think anywhere else do you get such a unique perspective of the whole of central and local government.
Melanie Webb, Assistant Auditor-General, Legal, Policy and Inquiries:
Because we're an independent office of Parliament we're not responding to ministers and ministers' offices every day. We're not subject to the Official Information Act and we're not responding to things like parliamentary questions. We set our own work agenda and we make decisions about what our work programme should involve and what things we should work on that are going to have the most impact in the public sector.
Andrea Reeves, Assistant Auditor-General, Local Government Group:
Taxpayers and ratepayers have high expectations of public entities and how they spend public money and there are always ways in which all public entities can improve, particularly around the transparency and accountability of their spending of public money.
Gareth:
One of the real privileges about working here is having contact with so many senior managers from such a broad range of public organisations so that we can then provide advice to the Auditor-General in terms of the discretionary work that we think the Office could usefully do in a way that's going to add value by helping to improve performance of organisations but also to give Parliament really good insight and assurance around how well they're performing.
Melanie:
One of the things I wondered about when I first came to work at the Office the Auditor-General is whether the work would be quite technical and dry but actually it's not. The issues that we deal with in this organisation are always really interesting and can come from anywhere across the whole public sector.
Andrea:
The people here all have the same values and they're all wanting to improve the performance of the public sector and everyone's motivated by that goal.
Melanie:
We're all about improving performance in the public sector and ultimately that's so that the public sector does a better job for New Zealanders and that's pretty easy to believe in.
Title: Visit oag.govt.nz for more information about starting your career with the Office of the Auditor-General.