Inquiry into Performance Reporting and Public Accountability
(Interim Report I.3S)
From: Ukes Baha | 29 October 2025
Submitted in response to the Committee’s call for submissions on the Inquiry
This submission supports the Inquiry but calls for fundamental reform rather than incremental adjustment.
The current performance-reporting system is fragmented, short-term, and opaque.
It fails to link public money to public value, under-weights Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, and lacks independent assurance over outcomes.
I welcome this inquiry as a necessary step toward restoring transparency and public trust.
However, the current performance-reporting system is so fragmented and opaque that incremental reform will not suffice.
The existing architecture—described in the Committee’s own interim report as a “patchwork of requirements”—has drifted far from the principles of clarity, accountability, and equity that should underpin democratic governance.
This submission urges a fundamental redesign. True accountability must connect public money to public value, integrate Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations into its foundations, and make government performance intelligible to citizens rather than specialists.
The current system fails to provide Parliament or the public with a clear line of sight from objectives to outcomes.
Strategic documents, annual plans, and budgets are disconnected, leaving citizens unable to judge performance.
The Estimates and annual reports run to thousands of pages. They bury meaning under data, producing “relatively little benefit to Parliament or the public.” Information has become noise.
Reporting focuses on immediate spending rather than intergenerational outcomes. Long-term challenges—climate change, inequality, public health—remain untracked.
Outputs dominate. There is no consistent measure of value for money, social distribution, or whether policies close or widen gaps across population groups.
Vertical reporting between agencies and ministers discourages cooperation on shared problems. Parliament receives fragmented stories rather than system-wide performance.
Most accountability documents are unaudited. Only financial statements receive independent verification, leaving outcomes untested.
Flexibility without standards has produced wide variability in content and quality. Smaller agencies lack resources to meet expectations.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi appears only as an optional question to submitters, not as a design requirement. Māori data sovereignty and co-governance are absent from the framework.
Without structural change, this inquiry risks becoming another technical exercise that rearranges paperwork without strengthening accountability.
Accountability reform must embed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in law and practice. Māori should be partners in defining measures of success, data governance, and evaluation.
Reporting must show who benefits and who bears cost. Equity outcomes should be mandatory, not discretionary.
Transparency must follow public money wherever it goes—through outsourcing, contracting, or privatisation.
“Public value” should stand alongside “financial performance” as a statutory measure of success.
Create a Performance and Accountability Act to unify obligations now scattered across the Public Finance Act, Crown Entities Act, and audit rules. State its purpose clearly: accountability, improvement, and trust.
Mandate long-term, cross-agency outcome reporting with clear links between spending and results. Require each government to publish enduring outcomes with measurable indicators, refreshed each term.
Expand the Auditor-General’s role to verify impact and outcome reporting. Publish plain-language public dashboards translating technical reports into accessible summaries.
Set minimum quality standards for data, evaluation, and impact reporting. Fund capability-building for small and community-based agencies to ensure consistent performance information across the public sector.
Establish a Māori Accountability Framework co-designed with iwi and hapū. Make reporting on Māori outcomes a legislative requirement for all Crown entities and departments.
Require Parliament to review every three years whether reporting meets public needs. Simplify or repeal low-value reporting obligations. Enable public interrogation of open data through transparent digital tools.
Mandate joined-up performance reporting for cross-sector outcomes such as housing, health, and climate. Introduce shared targets that compel coordination across ministries.
Reform should proceed in three phases:
Legislative consolidation and Treaty embedding.
Capacity-building and assurance expansion across agencies.
Public outcome reporting via independent, plain-language dashboards.
Include statutory review and sunset clauses to ensure reforms remain active and measurable.
Accountability without clarity is illusion. New Zealand deserves a performance-reporting system that shows not just how much was spent but what difference was made—for people, for place, and for future generations.
I urge the Committee to move beyond procedural change and build a transparent, Treaty-honouring system that measures public value, not paperwork.
Finance and Expenditure Committee, Inquiry into Performance Reporting and Public Accountability: Interim Report I.3S (17 Sep 2025).
Respectfully submitted,
Ukes Baha
Public Health Advocate | Counsellor | Policy Analyst
ukesbaha.com