Results-oriented Budget Practice in oecd countries odi working Papers 209

2.5 Lessons from New Zealand 
Reform in New Zealand is still under way. Successes in moving to an outcome focus have been 
achieved through the generation of better quality information, particularly though the introduction 
of accruals accounting. This has been accompanied by the clarification of the respective roles of 
ministers and chief executives. Accountability relationships are enhanced with rewards and 
sanctions linked to performance. Work, however, continues moving to a genuine outcomes focus.
Attempts are being made to provide better information on outcomes, enabling better prioritisation of 
budget allocations. This is seen as a supplement to good output information. Key to this is 
improving the quality of policy advice. The new Pathfinder Project seeks to establish outcome 
measurement frameworks. This will establish links between final outcomes (e.g. reduced road 
deaths), intermediate outcomes (e.g. proportion of drunk drivers) and outputs (e.g. number of police 
traffic patrols) (Kibblewhite and Ussher, 2001). They question the extent to which outcomes based 
management can be driven from the top-down. “Central agencies must balance the need to be 
responsive to the constraints that specific agencies face, with the need to provide impetus and 
leadership from the centre. ……. If agencies are to use outcomes-based systems, they need to have 
a sense of ownership and so need to develop tools and systems to fit their businesses” (Kibblewhite 
and Ussher, 2001, p 105). 
Several commentators have expressed major reservations about the applicability of the New 
Zealand model to other contexts. It also needs to be acknowledged that the model is an 
evolutionary one with a unique approach to output and outcome specification and one which builds 
on, rather than replacing, previous achievements. Indeed, the system is under active review within 
and without New Zealand government and, in particular, the respective roles of outputs and 
outcomes and the way in which responsibility for them is attached to ministers and chief executives 
is the subject of extensive debate (see Molander et al, 2002, p 129-30).