2012/13

A list of our work produced between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2013.
Inquiry into aspects of ACC's Board-level governance

August 2012: Our inquiry found no evidence that Ms Pullar's approach to one of ACC's Board members affected her claim to ACC. However, the Board had no formal policy to guide Board members on communication with individual claimants, a deficiency it is rectifying.

Auckland Council: Transition and emerging challenges

December 2012: This report sets out our observations from interviews with more than 50 people who were involved in designing and implementing the Auckland local government reforms and are involved in the governance and management of the Auckland Council. It also draws on our own audit work with the Council.

New Zealand Defence Force: The civilianisation project

January 2013: To remain effective and conform with government policy, New Zealand Defence Force designed the civilianisation project to change the balance of its workforce. It aimed to get a higher proportion of military staff in "front" (deployable military capability) positions compared to direct and indirect support positions. Overall, in our view, the civilianisation project has had limited success...

Inquiry into the Government’s decision to negotiate with SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited for an international convention centre

February 2013: We have seen no evidence to suggest that the final decision to negotiate with SkyCity was influenced by any inappropriate considerations. However, we found a range of deficiencies in the advice that the Ministry provided and the steps that officials and Ministers took leading up to that decision. The quality of support that was provided fell short of what we would have expected from the lead government agency on commercial and procurement matters...

Education for Māori: Implementing Ka Hikitia – Managing for Success

May 2013: This is the second report in our five-year programme of audits examining the performance of the education system for Māori. We found reason for optimism that the Government’s strategy for education for Māori, Ka Hikitia, will increasingly enable Māori students to succeed. Ka Hikitia is a well-researched and well-consulted document that has the backing of Māori. However, there has been only modest improvement overall in Māori students’ academic results since Ka Hikitia was launched...

Public sector financial sustainability

June 2013: This discussion paper explores international practices and current research in assessing and understanding public sector financial sustainability. The research concludes that financial sustainability is not a matter of subtracting expenses from revenue to find the gap. We need to sustain the services publicly expected, withstand shocks, and keep public confidence...

Evolving approach to combating child obesity

June 2013: We wanted to understand the public sector’s approach to combating child obesity, but the Ministry of Education and Sport New Zealand no longer focus on obesity to the extent they have in the past and the Ministry of Health was evaluating new ideas and approaches to combating obesity. These changing circumstances limited what my staff could usefully audit...

Insuring public assets

June 2013: The purpose of this paper is to provide a high-level view of the extent of insurance for many of the assets in the public sector and the main changes since 2010. By doing this, we hope to encourage further discussion by provoking relevant questions about insurance of public assets...

Managing public assets

June 2013: The report sets out the results of our “stocktake” of the physical assets in the public sector. It provides an overview of those assets, their condition and value, maintenance and renewals, and what information is reported to decision-makers about these matters...

Learning from public entities' use of social media

June 2013: This report shares what eight entities (seven public entities and one non-government organisation) have learned from using social media in different ways. It also draws out success factors from the experiences of these eight entities...