What's New?
This document updates the guidance titled Preparing the Annual Report - Guidance and Requirements for Departments released in June 2012.
The changes made since the last release are:
- In May 2013, the External Reporting Board (XRB) issued a package of new standards that will apply to public sector public benefit entities (including departments and Offices of Parliament) from the 2014/15 financial year. These new standards do not affect the preparation of the 2012/13 annual report (refer section 3.5).
- A copy of the current Technical Practice Aid (TPA) No.9 Service Performance Reporting (repackaged) is now available as Appendix C of PBE IPSAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements issued by the XRB (as part of the new package of standards mentioned above). As an interim measure, the XRB incorporated TPA No.9 as guidance in the new package, while they work on a project to develop a standard on service performance reporting (refer section 3.5).
- On 19 June 2013, the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives issued an updated Presentation of Papers to the House circular. The process for presenting papers to the House has not changed but the number of hard copies required has.
- Hyperlinks have been updated and some minor corrections have been made, including a link to the NZ IFRS compliant model financial statements prepared by Audit New Zealand.
Other new information included in this document:
- The amendments to the State Sector Act 1988, the Public Finance Act 1989 (PFA) and the Crown Entities Act 2004 being made by the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill to support the Better Public Services reform programme.
- The amendments to the PFA will:
- support more meaningful information being provided to Parliament
- improve financial flexibility to support greater focus on what is being achieved, and
- clarify departmental chief executives' responsibilities for financial management and financial stewardship.
- Subject to these amendments being passed, departments will have the option to present and publish their annual reports for 2012/13 with those of other departments in a single document (e.g. where there is an agreed sector strategy, the reports could be published in one document provided the constituent parts are separately identifiable). Any departments wanting to take up this option should contact their Treasury sector team so the Treasury can work with the departments and the Office of the Clerk to ensure this all runs smoothly.
- All other amendments (i.e., not the one above) do not affect the preparation of the 2012/13 annual report.
- Annex 7 has been added to this document to support departments thinking about how to incorporate the opportunities into their planning for 2014/15 and subsequent years.
- Over the coming weeks and months, the Treasury is planning a series of communications and implementation activities to support agencies in understanding and applying the amendments.
