The bosses of government funded entities have fronted up to select committees to justify their spending over the last financial year.
Photo: 123RF
Billions of dollars are collected in tax revenue and every year MPs on select committees grill the bosses of government departments, Offices of Parliament, Crown entities, State enterprises and other public organisations to see if they’ve done what they were funded to do.
It’s the annual review process and officially it starts when the annual report of a department is presented to a committee.
So for example, the Ministry of Justice was reviewed by MPs on the Justice Committee who questioned the Ministry’s CEO Andrew Bridgman on targets, internal plans to advance women employees and treatment of Maori.
Parliament has a financial cycle which has two main parts; one includes estimates or votes which are allocated from the budget or basically how much money a minister will spend in a particular area.
The second part is annual reviews which are where MPs can investigate whether the money was spent wisely.
In this programme, you can hear examples from a select committee annual review and an explanation from Maori Affairs committee clerk Rebecca Bonner on what annual reviews are all about.
Maori Affairs Select Committee clerk Rebecca Bonner Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
