Accountability

The Authority is an independent Crown entity, which means it is accountable to Parliament for its use of taxpayer funding.

The Authority is independent in its day-to-day operations. It cannot be told how to handle an investigation, or what the outcome of any investigation should be.

However, the Authority is taxpayer-funded and it must account to the responsible Minister and to Parliament for its use of those funds.

This accountability is provided through:

• a Statement of Intent (SOI) to Parliament, usually produced to cover a four year period;
• a Statement of Performance Expectations, which sets out the Authority’s budget and the performance measures against which its operations can be judged and how the strategic objectives in the SOI will be achieved; and
• an Annual Report to Parliament, which sets out how the Authority has performed against its budget and performance measures.

You can read these documents in the Publications section of this site.

The Annual Report is independently audited to ensure that the Authority’s financial and service performance is accurately reported.

The accountability requirements relating to the Authority are defined in the Crown Entities Act 2004.

The Authority also makes four-monthly reports to the Minister of Justice.

Finally, the Chair of the Authority appears before the Law and Order Select Committee each year to report on and answer questions about its budget and performance measures.