Benchmarking Administrative and Support Services
Page updated 23 Apr 2013
This cross-agency programme provides an annual administrative and support (A&S) service benchmarking service to larger government agencies to support value for money assessments, target-setting, and tracking of improvement over time. It also provides a picture of each function across agencies, including larger cross agency improvement programmes, and it advances opportunities for cross-agency collaboration.
Annual Administrative & Support Services Benchmarking Update - April 2013
The third annual benchmarking report - Administrative & Support Services Benchmarking Report for the Financial Year 2011/12 - was released on 23 April 2013. It provides information on the cost, efficiency, and effectiveness of A&S services across the State sector. Results cover six A&S service functions across larger departments and crown entities over three reporting periods (Financial Years 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12). The NZ full cohort agency results FY 2011/12 are also available. Individual agency results, including data, metrics and comparators are available
Consistent performance information across agencies gives transparency over a significant area of expenditure and provides an evidence base for assessing performance.
One part of delivering better public services is ensuring money is not unnecessarily spent on back office administration, when redirecting it to frontline services would yield better results. By tracking changes each year, we can see if investment in A&S change programmes are delivering results and learn what works and what doesn't.
The benchmarking reports are an important step towards transparency and scrutiny of government services, and future reports will keep an eye on how the State sector is tracking towards the goal of reducing costs and improving efficiency and effectiveness of A&S services for the New Zealand State sector.
Thinking of self assessing?
Any central government agency, outside those mandated by Cabinet to provide A&S information to the Treasury annually, is able to undertake self assessments using the A&S benchmarking methodology. By completing a self assessment it allows comparison against similar organisations or cohort medians using the published A&S data. This can be undertaken for all A&S functions/metrics, or just the A&S functions/metrics that the agency is interested in and doesn’t require data to be submitted to the Treasury.
Contact the Treasury to find out more.
Contact for Enquiries
Email: BASS@treasury.govt.nz
