Bernard Hickey has posted this item on public service financial management. It is a very concerning read. We just copy the para on Treasury as it supports comments we have made recently on this critical agency
Treasury are a shadow of their former selves - a joke in fact. I can understand why the brightest have left and they now offer no more than process guidance rather than rigorous oversight into departmental spending. Incredibly, I know of a dept who put in a bid for more than NZ$100 million whose only discernible benefit was for more transactions to be processed in NZ rather than offshore, but did not actually plan to reduce offshore spend. Treasury were not impressed but let the bid proceed to Cabinet. Treasury also urged us to find a catchy project name - apparently it’s helpful in the compressed timeframes and limited knowledge of Cabinet. God help us.
