Financial Review Debate — Office of the Controller and Auditor-General

Kia ora tātou katoa. I will take a few minutes just to focus on the financial review of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General. I note that the Finance and Expenditure Committee report on the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General was pretty succinct; in fact, it had only two lines. But I did want to mention some of the work that did occur during the period of the review, because it is key to, I suppose, making sure that we hold the Government to account.

A massive 100-page report into the central government results of the 2010-11 audits asked some key questions about the Public Service. For example, is the one-size-fits-all approach the appropriate approach to take for the future? Should there be a more collective approach to reporting? Is a simpler, more flexible approach desirable? These are great questions and I want to just take a couple of examples to sort out why. In the health sector audits, the Auditor-General tells us that despite there being specific legislation in place to reduce the disparities for Māori, the lack of information in the annual reports and the absence of targets to reduce disparities makes it pretty hard to gauge district health boards’ progress. Some district health boards had great intentions to improve the health outcomes for Māori, but for four district health boards there was not even a mention of health disparities for Māori in the plans at all. For 14 district health boards there was a mention of initiatives to address some disparities, but the descriptions were pretty general rather than specific in detail. Can I suggest that a collective approach might result in measures and targets for Māori, with trend data reported in the annual reports being a pretty good approach.

Moving to the education sector, I was interested in the 2011 audit of Māori immersion schools. One of the aspects of interest was around the notion of conflicts of interest. Given the close association by whakapapa and by whānau associations in kura, there is every likelihood that kura will be employing staff who are actually whanaunga—relations—of the trustees who obviously run the schools. The Auditor-General acknowledges that this is a reality and in fact out of the 64 kura, or schools, that had boards, 46—that is, 72 percent—were in this position. The report had some really simple advice around how one might manage the perception of conflict of interests. In one school, in one kura, for example, the principal’s husband tendered for the contract to paint the school fence. When it came to the discussions around the contract, the principal abstained from the vote. In another kura, the brother of a trustee tendered for a contract. The board minutes stated that the board member concerned was not consulted because there would be a conflict of interest. This is the sort of information that we would expect as a part of the auditor’s key function: really specific, useful, measurable actions that make the words mean something.

Finally, the reason that I think the work of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General is so important is basically around the whole notion of accountability. It is pretty simple: we need to know that any service or agency being funded by the taxpayer has made, and is making, a real difference to the communities. It has got to be more than just having documents or plans; we want to know that the plans have made life a lot better and that the results of those plans are being communicated in a meaningful way. That is at the heart—and, in a sense, the genesis—of Whānau Ora. We want the Government to be more transparent and accountable to Parliament and to the public.

The Auditor-General talks about the cost of producing reports for the sake of having some reports. We want to be able to trust that public funds are being spent to improve the situation for people. The classic example is in local government. In 2010-11 local authorities receiving $14.5 billion to finance the services they deliver to the community seems way over the top. The Local Government Act 2002 requires that councils consider and promote current and future well-being of communities. It has also introduced new responsibilities and opportunities for engagement and cooperation between councils and Māori. Yet what we know is that the performance against these criteria is at best variable, and the Māori Party is determined that local authorities must comply with these requirements by law. So again that is why the appropriations report is pretty vital as we move forward. Kia ora.

Report noted.

Office of the Ombudsmen