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3. Assessment of operations

In this section:

• Overview of the Department’s operations
• Baseline savings
• Reduction in expenditure on contractors and consultants
• Our Ministerial portfolios
• Significant Budget decisions
• Year-end performance information on Appropriations
  • Statement of Service Performance and Judgements
  • Departmental Appropriations
  • Multi-Category Expenses and Capital Expenditure

Overview of the Department’s operations

We have a broad range of responsibilities and functions that include working with communities, ensuring effective regulatory frameworks are in place, and supporting the Executive and local government. We invest in information and communications technologies (ICT) and information management, and deliver a range of services to support and foster New Zealand’s cultural identity.

Our wider functions

• Managing and protecting the integrity of national identity information. This includes life events such as births, deaths and marriages, citizenship and issuing passports.
• Regulating activities in several sectors including: gambling, online child exploitation and countering violent extremism. We also regulate government record-keeping, charities, unsolicited electronic messages, anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism, private security personnel and private investigators.
• Providing policy advice to the Government on: local government, the community and voluntary sector, fire and emergency services, identity, ICT, information management, digital safety, gambling and racing.
• Providing information, resources and advice to communities to support their aspirations.
• Administering grant funding schemes, as well as promoting trust and confidence in the charitable sector.
• Supporting Ministers to ensure the Executive Government operates efficiently and effectively. This includes providing ‘Very Important Person’ (VIP) transport services for members of the Executive Government and other VIPs and dignitaries.
• Coordinating and managing official Guest of Government visits to New Zealand, and arranging national commemorative events.
• Advising on, establishing and supporting the operation of public and government inquiries and reviews, including Royal Commissions of Inquiry.
• Administering a range of statutory functions for the Minister of Local Government, including for Lake Taupō and offshore islands.
• Leadership of the overall strategy and direction for the Government’s digital modernisation and digital service delivery.

Our responsibilities

The Department has administrative responsibility for approximately 50 Acts (plus an additional 62 historic Local Legislation Acts) and about 120 pieces of secondary legislation. We also have functional regulatory roles or share responsibility under six other pieces of legislation.

We monitor the performance of three Crown entities (Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the Office of Film and Literature Classification and The Water Services Authority - Taumata Arowai). We also manage the appointment process for members of a range of trusts, committees and boards.

Reduction in expenditure on contractors and consultants

The Department achieved a $33.6 million reduction in contractors and consultants’ expenditure in 2024/25, representing a 45% decrease from the previous year. The 2024/25 spend of $41 million (including Ministry for Ethnic Communities of $0.1 million) equates to 5% of total departmental workforce expenditure.

This compares with expenditure of $123.4 million (including Ministry for Ethnic Communities of $0.8 million) and $74.6 million (including Ministry for Ethnic Communities of $0.2 million) for 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 respectively, which represents 21% and 12% of total departmental workforce expenditure in these years respectively.

Our Ministerial portfolios

We are responsible to six Ministers, administering six portfolios within Vote Internal Affairs. The Ministry for Ethnic Communities, a departmental agency hosted by the Department, also administers one portfolio and is responsible to one Minister.

The Minister of Internal Affairs is the Vote Minister and the responsible Minister overseeing the Government’s ownership interests in Internal Affairs. The portfolios and responsible Ministers are outlined below:

Department of Internal Affairs
Internal Affairs	Hon Brooke van Velden
Ministerial Services	Rt Hon Christopher Luxon
Racing	Rt Hon Winston Peters
Local Government	Hon Simon Watts
Community and Voluntary Sector	Hon Louise Upston
Digitising Government	Hon Judith Collins KC
Ministry for Ethnic Communities
Ethnic Communities	Hon Mark Mitchell

Ministerial priorities

The Department does quarterly reporting to each portfolio Minister against the portfolio and Ministerial priorities, and financial and non-financial performance measures. The progress against some of our Ministerial priorities are outlined in Section 2 – Progress on Strategic Intentions 2024-2028.

The Letter of Expectations is a formal document used by Ministers to communicate their priorities and expectations to the boards of Crown Entities [1].

The Minister of Internal Affairs’ annual Letter of Expectations outlines the Government’s priorities for the Boards of Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the Office of Film and Literature Classification. The Minister of Local Government’s annual Letter of Expectations outlines the priorities and expectations relating to The Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai. The Minister for Racing has sent a letter to TAB New Zealand requesting quarterly updates and meetings to discuss TAB New Zealand’s performance and the partnering arrangement with Entain New Zealand. This is to ensure an appropriate level of reporting and oversight.

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1.  Read more on the Letters on Expectations on https://www.dia.govt.nz/About-Internal-Affairs---Ministers-and- governance---Letters-of-Expectation

 

Significant Budget decisions

The table below outlines the significant Budget decisions through Budget 2025 and Budget 2024 for Vote Internal Affairs:

Significant Budget Decisions	Purpose of funding
Phase 2 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID19 Lessons (Internal Affairs portfolio)	To meet the costs of Phase 2 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons. Refer to delivery snapshot (Section 2).
Online Casino Gambling Regulatory Scheme: Drawdown of Tagged Contingency Funds and proposed name of memorandum account (Internal Affairs portfolio)	For the scoping phase of the technology solution associated with Online Gambling. Refer to Online Casion Gambling Bill story (Section 2).
Request to draw down contingency funding for a survivor-focussed fund (Internal Affairs portfolio)	For the Public Apology for Abuse in Care Fund including administrative costs. Refer to Chief Archivist apology story (Section 2).
Addressing request for urgent funding for security from at-risk communities (Community and Voluntary Sector portfolio)	For high priority security projects for communities at risk from hate crime and terrorism.
Continued Recovery from the North Island Weather Events (Local Government portfolio)	To support councils in the essential clearance of sediment and debris as part of the continued recovery from the North Island Weather Events.
Implementing Local Water Done Well (Local Government portfolio)	To implement the Local Water Done Well policy - for work on policy development, legislation, financing settings, economic regulation and water safety regulation. Refer to Local Water Done Well story (Section 2).
Implementation plan and request to draw down contingency funding for projects to improve redress for survivors of abuse in care (Internal Affairs portfolio)	To continue the Interim Listening Service for survivors of abuse in care, to provide care leavers with improved access to and control over their care records and to provide for continuing agency engagement on the Crown Response to the Abuse in Care Inquiry.
Drawdown and extension of The Water Services Authority - Taumata Arowai, New Crown Agent Regulator for Water Services tagged operating contingency and levy option update (Local Government portfolio)	For the operating costs for The Water Services Authority - Taumata Arowai in 2024/25.
Local Water Done Well Stage 2: Establishing the Framework and Transitional Arrangements (Local Government portfolio)	To support Local Water Done Well.
Resilient Westport: project overview and drawdown of funds for structural flood protection (Local Government portfolio)	To allow work on structural projections, fund property-level adaptation and transfer of Organ’s Island to regional council management to slow flood waters. Refer to delivery snapshot (Section 2).

The information below outlines the significant budget decisions through Budget 2025 that impact 2025/26 and outyears.

• Expanding the Eligibility for the Rates Rebate Scheme to Include SuperGold Cardholders – to expand this scheme to lift the income threshold to access rates rebates and associated administrative costs.
• Regional Deals Programme Implementation and Support - to continue delivering through a Secretariat function within the Department of Internal Affairs.
• Making the Care System Safe – recordkeeping to Improve Quality, Quantity, Capacity, Access and Whanau Connections, part of the wider Government’s response to redress recommendations made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.
• Ministerial Services – to address critical cost pressures and maintain service levels.

Our Performance Measurement Reporting Programme

The Department is on a journey to develop and refine our performance measures information as outlined in Section 3 - Assessment of operations - Year-end performance information on Appropriations. Our performance measures assess whether we have achieved specific services or functions that collectively support the overall achievement of our outcomes which are outlined in Section 2 - Progress on Strategic Intentions.

How we select our performance measures and standards

We follow a consistent process to review and select performance measures. This process looks at the purpose of the funding, the Department’s role, and the outcomes we aim to achieve, then identifies potential performance measures. We assess each potential performance measure and select the ones that are both feasible to put in place and best show the achievement of the results. The same process is followed when developing performance measures for new funding.

The Department is required by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to have performance measures in the following two areas:

• Minister’s satisfaction with the quality of policy advice – we follow the Ministerial Policy Satisfaction Survey guidance provided by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for agencies with policy appropriations.
• Quality of policy advice and policy briefings – we follow the Policy Quality Framework guidance provided by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for assessing policy advice papers.

Standards (targets) are selected using historical data and/or judgements around expected or desired performance levels. If no data exists to set a standard for a new performance measure, the first year is used to collect baseline data to establish a standard.

How we manage changes to our performance measures and standards

Changes to performance measures are detailed in the Estimates of Appropriation and Supplementary Estimates of Appropriation documents for Vote Internal Affairs. Notes are included to explain the reasons for them.

To maintain consistency in reporting, we develop and maintain catalogues for each performance measure. These catalogues show how data is collected, calculated, and recorded.

How we report on our performance measures and results

Summary results for the Department are reported at the start of Section 3 - Assessmentofoperations-Year-end performanceinformationonAppropriations. Individual results for each appropriation are reported in a table under the heading How we performed, and in the case of a multi-category appropriation for each category.

Comparative results from the prior year, as published in the previous Annual Report, are included to provide a consistent point of comparison. For new performance measures, comparative results may not be available due to the absence of historical data.

Disclosures regarding measuring bases and evaluation methods for each performance measure can be found at the end of the Section 3 - Assessment of operations - Year-end performance information on Appropriations.

The following criteria are used to rate and report on performance measure results:

Performance measures assessment criteria

Standard has been met  

Standard is on-track to be met

Standard has not been met

 

Where a performance measure standard has not been met, or where there is a significant variance, a note is included to explain why.

Disclosure of key judgements for 2024/25

The Department reviewed its set of performance measures to ensure they remain relevant, meaningful and effectively tell the performance story for funding received through appropriations. This review better aligns the suite of measures with best practice and the expectations of the Government and Auditor-General. Most changes resulting from the review are applicable for the 2025/26 financial year.

This ensures we are:

• providing appropriate and meaningful performance measures that support the relevant intention statement for the appropriation
• providing performance measures proportionate to the funding involved
• balancing the continuation of reporting with targeted improvements
• addressing issues identified through our regular reporting processes.

Following the review, some changes were made to performance measures for 2024/25 under

Section 3 - Assessment of operations - Year-end performance information on Appropriations. Explanations for changes to performance measures can be found in Vote Internal Affairs’ Estimates of Appropriations 2024/25 and Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations 2024/25 documents.

These changes include:

• removing and replacing performance measures that are no longer fit for purpose or relevant for showing achievement of results from the funding received
• removing performance measures that are no longer needed
• amending standards to reflect current rates of performance
• developing new performance measures for new funding received.

The Department will continue to review its performance measures annually, targeting any that are no longer fit for purpose or may need improvement, as part of a continuous improvement process.

Linking appropriations to outcomes

The Department’s outcomes framework guides our work and sets out what we need to achieve for the people we serve. Further information on the outcomes framework is available in Section 2 - Progress on Strategic Intentions. Each appropriation contributes to one or more of the following outcomes:

	New Zealand is a well-functioning democracy across central and local government
	People can easily access the services and information they need
	People’s sense of belonging and collective memory builds an inclusive New Zealand
	Iwi, hapū and communities across New Zealand are safe, resilient and thriving
	Oranga hapū, iwi and Māori is improved through an enduring, equitable and positive Māori-Crown relationship

Year-end performance information on Appropriations (PDF, 6.9MB)

In this section:

• Departmental Appropriations
• Multi-Category Expenses and Capital Expenditure

 

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