Data collection process

Since 2012, the Treasury has sought greater oversight of the portfolio of government projects by collecting data on significant project and programme intentions and initiatives underway.

The Government Project Portfolio team established and maintains a database of core project/programme information which is collected three times a year from agencies. This data is shared with the Central agencies, Functional Leads and agencies for a variety of purposes, and provides a valuable system-level view of investment activity across government.

A key aim is to minimise requests to agencies from multiple sources for similar information and the corporate requirements for large one-off data collection exercises.

The data collected is valuable input to a variety of processes such as the Budget process, major project monitoring, forecasting and ICT project reporting. It allows us to improve the way we forecast, understand performance and track benefits over time.

Focus on benefits of investment

Many organisations have strategies that are premised on current or future initiatives realising tangible monetary benefits that will contribute directly to them being able to manage within their forecast out-year fiscal constraints (eg, business transformation programmes to reduce operating costs).

There is now growing interest in understanding if the benefits promised when investment decisions are made, are actually realised.

Guidance

We update our guidance to agencies at least seven weeks ahead of each data collection submission deadline. This guidance explains the rationale for the data collection process, the information sought and the timeframes for providing it.