12: Performance Reporting for Accountability Purposes: Lessons, Issues, Future

The role of the Audit Office is to assist Parliament in strengthening, inter alia, the accountability of public sector organizations. Contributions to the debate on reporting non-financial performance of public entities were made by the Audit Office both for a decade prior to and in the years since the passing of the Public Finance Act 1989. As the debate continues and assessment is made of reporting under the current accountability and reporting arrangements, the Audit Office continues to identify weaknesses in, and to suggest improvements for, performance reporting.

This chapter reviews, first, the dimensions of accountability underlying performance reporting. The history of reporting non-financial performance for accountability purposes in New Zealand is covered in the next section. Audit Office reports made significant early criticisms of the financial management and control in government departments, and our recent reports are still raising criticisms of some aspects of executive accountability. The lessons learned from a decade of reporting non-financial performance, together with some issues outstanding, are then reviewed. Finally, future developments in reporting non-financial performance in the public sector from the Audit Office perspective are outlined.