Quality of management information
These findings report on known CES data quality issues, limitations of the indicator set in providing insight into CES management performance, and opportunities for improvement. The Context chapter includes common quality of management information findings across all functions that are not repeated in this chapter.
There are concerns with data quality for the CES function. In New Zealand and around the world, organisations undertake a range of activities within this function without standard definitions, and it is uncommon for organisations to benchmark these services. When they do benchmark, the quality of management information is impaired by data consistency issues and a limited pool of reliable comparator data.
There are opportunities to develop and implement more meaningful performance indicators. Indicators used in this report are based on the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) and the UK Audit Agencies' (UKAA) performance measurement methodologies. Because of low maturity globally in measuring these services relative to other A&S functions, ongoing discussion with practitioners on how to improve the quality of management information is essential to developing a more useful indicator set and making annual CES benchmarking relevant and useful to the management of their functions.
Some costs may be understated. Agencies have varied reliance on certain corporate functions depending on the nature of their role. For example, agencies with direct engagement with the public have a greater need for communications. To improve the comparability of data, marketing and printing costs were excluded from communications costs, and 'front-line' legal costs such as prosecution teams were excluded from legal costs. This approach improves the comparability of the data but does mean that costs are not a full reflection of the total cost of each service for every agency.
Note also that costs associated with functions performed by the Office of the Chief Executive, and administration and mailroom costs are outside of the five A&S functions. Dedicated research and evaluation teams are also excluded.
