Last updated:
Monday, 8 June 2020
The Treasury is committed to robust and transparent stewardship of public funds. Owning the right assets, managing them well, funding them sustainably, and managing risks to the Crown balance sheet are all critical to public services being cost effective and high quality.
Investments mean committing resources to deliver government services with the expectation of receiving future benefits.
Establishing how agencies are managing investments and assets is a critical way to ensure taxpayer money is being used as effectively as possible.
The Investor Confidence Rating (ICR)
The ICR is a three-yearly assessment of the performance of investment-intensive agencies in managing investments and assets that are critical to the delivery of NZ government services. The ICR provides an indication of the level of confidence that investors (such as Cabinet and Ministers) can have in an agency’s ability to realise a promised investment result if funding was committed.
The ICR process is led by the Treasury. The process provides feedback to agencies on improvement actions that they can take to enhance key aspects of their investment management capability and performance. Over time, these actions position agencies to more effectively manage future investments and assets.
Between formal ICR assessments, the Treasury leads a review of the progress each agency is making in response to the last ICR assessment. That progress is reflected in the form of an Outlook Discussion. The outlook discussion timings are found below.
The rating scale
The ICR uses a rating scale from A to E, with an ‘A’ rating signalling a high level of performance and an ‘E’ rating indicating significant assistance may be required for the agencies investments to deliver results. A ‘C’ rating means that the status quo investment management system arrangements remain in place.
How the ICR is used
The ICR provides an incentive mechanism that rewards good investment management performance and proactively addresses performance gaps. Agencies that receive a good rating may obtain greater autonomy, higher financial delegations and less monitoring and reporting. Agencies that do not rate as well may obtain less autonomy, lower financial delegations and may attract additional monitoring and support.
The ICR helps individual agencies identify where they need to lift capability to maximise the value of their investments and assets and is one component of the information that is considered by Cabinet when it prioritises investments.
ICR Timeframes
The first round of ICR assessments is complete. ICR results are posted on the Treasury website.
As at June 2020, the Treasury has paused the final tranche of Round 2 results due to COVID-19.
Final agency ratings and any resultant implications will be determined by Cabinet under advice from Ministers.
Timing of Round 3
The IMAP team has commissioned an independent review of the ICR (by July 2020) to recommend strategic improvements to it. This will be followed by detailed redesign in the second half of 2020. The Round 3 start date will be confirmed and communicated as part of the independent review.
Outlook reviews
The mid-cycle progress review (Outlook) takes place about 18 months after Cabinet approves the ICR rating. See the Operating the ICR Outlook Discussion - Guidance for Investment-intensive Agencies for current timings for mid-cycle reviews.
The exact timing and details will be arranged and mutually agreed between each agency, monitors and the Treasury, and COVID-19 impacts will be considered.
More information around how ICR operates can be found:
Results from ICR assessments can be found:
Resources
- Results of the Investor Confidence Rating
- Investor Confidence Rating - Information
- Fact Sheet (Round 2) (PDF)
- ICR at a Glance (PDF)