Foreword by the Minister of Finance
Hon Bill English, Minister of Finance, Deputy Prime Minister
Delivering better public services to New Zealanders is one of the Government's main priorities over the next three years.
New Zealanders rightly expect a world-class health service, an education system that delivers for every child, a strong and effective justice system and social services that protect our most vulnerable and provide children from all walks of life with the opportunities they need to succeed.
Delivering better public services will help improve the lives and well being of New Zealanders.
To achieve this we need State sector agencies to become truly focused on, and organised around, meeting the priority needs of families and businesses, and doing so within tight budgets.
New Zealanders should be able to get the services they need without having to navigate through a maze of agencies or paying, through their taxes, for unnecessary bureaucracy.
We want high quality, innovative public services that are responsive to users' needs and open to ongoing improvement.
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.
Over the last three years, the Government has started putting in place frameworks which over time will reduce waste and duplication.
For many years the public sector has needed robust and transparent management information so agencies can make informed decisions about how to more efficiently provide back office support.
This report - the second of its kind - is an important step towards that transparency and continues to put scrutiny on areas of public spending that until recently were hard to compare.
I want to thank the 31 agencies that cooperated to help produce this report, incorporating data for the 2010/11 financial year.
I am pleased that public servants are rising to the challenge of reducing costs and adopting more productive and effective ways of doing business.
Benchmarking these costs will continue to challenge chief executives to lift their game, learn from other agencies and look at other ways of providing back office support.
