Curran Clare: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11691. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):I am really pleased to take a call on these final clauses in the Committee stage of this bill the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill. I would like to reiterate some of the things that have been said by my colleagues and put the emphasis on the importance of transparency and accountability in this bill. I certainly think that the Government through the negotiations that have occurred around trying to come up with a solution to the problems that were obviously apparent after the first reading of this bill has seen an enormous amount of hard work that has gone on and I certainly think that the members on this side of the Chamber have put the Government on notice around how this bill is actually implemented and how it will actually work.We certainly do want legislation in this area that is geared towards a flexible interactive Public Service. It certainly is the age of Google. Technology is driving so many of the changes that we are seeing in legislation. We certainly need the joined-up-ness between Government agencies and the directions that Government agencies are receiving from Ministers but along with that comes the absolute importance of the transparency of those instructions and changes and the accountabilities back to the public. I have been looking closely at some of the provisions throughout the discussionon this bill and I remain with some serious concerns around how those transparencies and accountabilities will actually be delivered to the public of New Zealand.I do want to say that it is important that the work that has been done by the members on the Finance and Expenditure Committee—in particular the Labour members on the select committee—on trying to come up with real solutions to get this piece of legislation through the House should be commended. We know as there has been much discussion that this bill was heavily amended by the select committee. There were some very tough negotiations on that committee around trying to make this a better piece of legislation which is ultimately what the work of this House should be about.I just want to reiterate some of those things that have resulted from that because we support—and absolutely support—an enhanced focus on the need to deliver value for money for taxpayers’ funds. We absolutely support the principle of developing and coordinating leadership across State services and the intent of amending the Public Finance Act to provide for those multi-category appropriations. I know my colleague David Cunliffe has talked about that at length. But clarifying and enhancing the expenditure tracking and accountability within revised budget and performance management documents is also so important which is why there were so many problems with this bill.The progress made during the select committee really has been around those conflict of interest provisions which were strengthened around where the delegation of powers were proposed for any State Service entity and improvements around the provisions for strategic intentions through those statements of intent. I would just like to say with regard to those statements of intent that the potential for conflict between the statements of intent the ministerial expectations and the actual legislation on which they are based is of absolute importance. It is of absolute importance that the people of New Zealand can be reassured that those conflicts are able to be managed and are transparent and that officials are able to provide advice—and have to provide advice—where there are conflicts.We have seen countless occasions where the way an entity is operating appears to be in conflict with the legislation that it is actually based on. The Television New Zealand Act is one of those very good examples. Before the Television New Zealand Amendment Bill actually went through this House the way that the entity was operating was in direct conflict with the legislation upon which it was based because of expectations that had been put on it from Ministers. It was therefore operating completely on a commercial basis which was in direct conflict with the legislation. We have to ensure that that does not happen and that people then do not start to believe that Government is operating its entities in conflict with the legislation upon which they are based. Those things and those accountabilities are absolutely critical.The full traceability of those votes and appropriations have been clarified in the provisions relating to Budget documents including where the title of appropriations and the output and sub-output classes have changed and where those multi-category appropriations have been instituted. Another improvement has been balancing the efficiency objectives within a broader notion of effectiveness which includes the procedural and substantive fairness considerations. We do support this bill. We have serious reservations that I know we have outlined at length in this Chamber over the last 12 hours or so and the reason why we have outlined them is the nature of those reservations. They need to be on the record so that if it is demonstrated through the implementation of this legislation that there remain substantive issues we can come in as the next Government and change them and have the mandate to change them because we have outlined what our concerns are.We remain concerned that the protections in redundancy provisions relate only to the Public Service. We remain concerned that the delegation of powers from the core State sector to non-State partners in implementing agents is constructed too broadly. We think that close monitoring will be required to ensure that this practice is used only in circumstances where benefits to the public clearly outweigh the costs and the risks. We remain concerned that immunity from suit rather than indemnity is being afforded and we note as we think the Government should note the Law Commission’s concerns in this regard.Amendments to the Public Finance Act that will assist in removing barriers to greater cooperation between public sector entities need to be balanced in practice with greater clarity of the financial accountability documents.So returning to those statement of intent processes we know that it is important that there is a clear contractual arrangement a relationship between the Ministers and public sector executives. We know that this is a crucial link in the accountability chain to Parliament and the public but the reduction of the frequency of required statement of intent updates to 3 years risks diluting that ministerial accountability for the agencies. We absolutely believe that it is important that we keep a close eye on how that plays out.The amendments to this bill we believe have given us cover to provide support. We know how important it is to get cross-party agreement on these sorts of pieces of legislation. They are absolutely foundational pieces of legislation for the ability to run Government and to run accountability right across Government. But we remain absolutely vigilant on a number of these issues and will be keeping a close eye on how they play out.