Next Steps for Public Spending in New Zealand : The Pursuit of Effectiveness

David Rae

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

关键词: public management;    fiscal transparency;    welfare programmes;    government expenditure;   

DOI  :  https://doi.org/10.1787/338071481346

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: OECD iLibrary

【 摘 要 】

This paper reviews public expenditure in New Zealand and the scope for further progress. Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has been a world leader in public management reforms. Government agencies have been transformed by delegating managerial responsibility to them and replacing input controls with an output-based budgeting and management approach. The adoption of a medium-term top-down fiscal management framework contributed to a large reduction in public debt. But while the system is good at producing outputs cheaply and often in innovative, responsive, and customer-driven ways, it is not as good at choosing what to produce in the first place (i.e. technical versus allocative efficiency). This reflects insufficient evaluation of programmes, not enough focus on managing for outcomes, and a budget that is excessively fragmented. The quality of spending could also be improved by a greater willingness to extend the use of market-based mechanisms, including usercharges, competition ...