July 2018: The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is one of New Zealand’s biggest customer-service organisations. In 2016/17, ACC received more than 1.9 million claims and paid out about $3.7 billion in claims. In August 2014, we published a report on how well ACC managed complaints. For this follow-up report we have looked at how well ACC has responded to the five recommendations in our 2014 report. Those recommendations were about how ACC responds to complaints from people who have been injured and have made a claim with ACC.
August 2018: In 2018, councils were required – for the second time since the Local Government Act 2002 was amended in 2014 – to produce consultation documents for their long-term plans. This report is based on our audits of the 2018-28 consultation documents. It is a mix of reflection, commentary, and good-practice guidance. We hope that this combination provides a useful resource for the next time councils prepare and consult on their planning documents.
August 2018: During 2016/17 and 2017/18, we looked at aspects of how well the public sector uses and manages information. We published a report that aims to help public organisations think about using and managing information more strategically. Public organisations are encouraged to consider the matters raised in our report and whether they are using and managing information in ways that allow them to best provide public services.
September 2018: We audited three district councils (Horowhenua District Council, Kāpiti Coast District Council, and Manawatu District Council) and one city council (Palmerston North City Council) to understand the challenges they face in supplying drinking water to their communities. We looked at what these four councils are doing to influence demand for drinking water and whether they are taking an integrated approach, using financial and non-financial methods.
September 2018: This report introduces our work on procurement. Drawing from our audit work and conversations with people involved in public sector procurement, we summarise what we see as the main issues and opportunities for improving procurement practice in the public sector. In our view, the public sector still has work to do to improve procurement practices. Despite considerable focus on it, and despite improvements that have been made, we continue to see instances of procurement practice that give us cause for concern.
15 October 2018: The Auditor-General has provided submissions to the State Services Commission and the Treasury on proposals to reform the State Sector Act 1988, to set up an Independent Fiscal Institution, and to embed a focus on wellbeing in the Public Finance Act 1989.
October 2018: Our annual report tells our stakeholders – Parliament, public entities, and New Zealanders – about our performance for the year 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018.
November 2018: This report sets out our observations from our audits of the 27 public tertiary education institutions. They consist of eight universities, 16 institutes of technology and polytechnics, and three wānanga.
December 2018: Post-implementation reviews evaluate how well a project has been managed and whether the benefits of that project have been achieved. We reviewed the process Auckland Council used for carrying out the reviews of two of its projects...
November 2018: We wrote to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, providing an update on our 2015 report about the timeliness of reporting by public organisations.
December 2018: This detailed information sets out the results of the school audits for 2017. We have provided this information, and a list of recommendations, to the Secretary for Education.
December 2018: This report sets out the results of our audit of the Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the year ended 30 June 2018 (the Government's financial statements) and of carrying out the Controller function.
December 2018: Protecting and conserving marine ecosystems while balancing competing interest groups in the Hauraki Gulf is challenging. We looked at a project aiming to create New Zealand's first marine spatial plan, which would create a healthy, productive, and sustainable future for the Gulf...
December 2018: We looked at how Dunedin City Council, Porirua City Council, and Thames-Coromandel District Council manage their stormwater systems to protect people and their property from the effects of flooding.
January 2019: Audit New Zealand (a business unit of the Controller and Auditor-General) was asked by the chairman of Waikato Institute of Technology to carry out additional assurance work in conjunction with the 2017 annual audit. This report sets out Audit New Zealand's findings about certain travel expenses and redundancy and severance payments.
February 2019: This report sets out the main findings and observations from our audits of local authorities’ 2018-28 long-term plans (LTPs).
February 2019: Recent changes to the Education Act 1989 require tertiary education institutes' statement of service performance (SSP) for 2019 to comply with generally accepted accounting practice. In this letter we discuss the upcoming changes to SSP requirements for tertiary education institutes' annual reports, provide some guidance on performance reporting, and recommend next steps for further information and support.
March 2019: This report concerns a decision of the Westland District Council to carry out work at Franz Josef to protect the town's wastewater treatment plant from flooding. The work was carried out on an urgent basis and resulted in the construction of a new 700-metres-long stopbank on the bank of the Waiho River. In this report, we acknowledge the serious nature of the flood risk the Council was dealing with, and the motivation of the elected members who were driving the decision to act in the community's best interests. However, we have serious concerns about what was done in this case.
1 April 2019: Most government spending for the first six months of 2018/19 has been properly authorised and is within the law. However, we have confirmed two instances that were not properly authorised.
May 2019: Letter sent on 9 May 2019 to chief executives of government departments and Crown entities by John Ryan, Controller and Auditor-General setting out some reflections and insights from our central government audit work over the last year.
May 2019: This report presents the main findings from our audits of councils' long-term plans (LTPs), the results of our annual audits, and other work in local government during 2017/18.
June 2019: This report looks at how two groups used two different processes that generated advice to Ministers for establishing marine protection, including marine reserves. Each group used a process that was different in terms of its origin, purpose, scope, and expected outcomes. We examined how inclusive, transparent, and well informed the processes were to identify lessons that could be applied to support the establishment of other marine protection measures.
June 2019: This guide is intended to help public sector employers when considering making a severance payment to a departing employee. It replaces our 2012 publication, and has been updated to reflect more recent case law and changes in accounting standards.
June 2019: The Annual Plan 2019/20 sets out our proposed work programme for 2019/20. The work programme describes the second year of our three-year Procurement work programme and the work we will complete under our Water management theme. We will begin work under our Improving the lives of New Zealanders theme. Our plan also describes the good practice guidance we intend to update, our work focused on ethics and integrity, and our continued work on assessing the state of the public sector accountability system.
Accident Compensation Corporation: How it deals with complaints
