Annual Report 2010/11

Download the full Annual Report 2010/11 (PDF 3.5MB)

You can also download the matters relating to the electronic presentation of the audited financial statements and statement of service performance (PDF 24KB)

Chief Executive's overview

Every day of the working week nearly 8,000 people come to work at the Department of Corrections where they manage New Zealand’s most difficult and challenging citizens. In December 2010, I joined this team of people.

I quickly learned that I was leading a well-performing Department that had made significant progress over the last few years. By concentrating on getting our systems and procedures right, we have significantly improved our performance and are effectively and efficiently delivering on the Government’s priorities. We have performed well against our priorities, demonstrating strong leadership to improve public safety and reduce re-offending, while never losing sight of the importance of providing better public value and showing fiscal responsibility.

Corrections is an exciting place to be. We’re building on our foundation of strong performance and leadership to create lasting change.

Public safety will always be our main priority. Over the last 12 months we have demonstrated our commitment to keeping the people of New Zealand safe through a variety of new initiatives as well as in our day-to-day work. Careful planning saw the smooth introduction of smokefree prisons in July 2011, making our prisons healthier and safer places for our staff, visitors and prisoners. Delivering on the second year of our Community Probation Services’ ‘Change Programme’ resulted in the improved management of community-based sentences and orders.

In order to keep the public safe, we need to focus on reducing re-offending and ensuring that people leave our services as better citizens than when they came in. To support this goal, we increased the number of prisoners who received drug and alcohol treatment. We ensured more prisoners than ever before were undertaking prisoner employment activities in prison. Rehabilitative programmes such as drug treatment units, and prisoner employment, have had good results in reducing rates of re-offending. The introduction of a Case Management approach to offender management is providing a more targeted approach to addressing offending behaviour, both within prisons and in the community. The development of the Whare Oranga Ake units at Spring Hill Corrections Facility and Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison sharpened our focus on supporting sustainable employment and accommodation for prisoners on release, and on facilitating constructive whänau and community engagement in the last months of their imprisonment. The most recent figures for offenders managed in 2009/10 indicate a fall in reconvictions and imprisonment rates amongst offenders who commenced a communitybased sentence.

We are committed to creating lasting change through innovation. Private sector innovation and expertise was introduced to the prison system through the contract management of Mt Eden Corrections Facility. The short-listing of three private-sector consortia to deliver a new 960-bed men’s prison at Wiri through a Public Private Partnership will provide further opportunities for innovation.

Over the past year Corrections’ services were tested by the devastating earthquakes in Canterbury. Although the earthquakes had a significant impact on all our frontline operations in both prisons and the community, we responded quickly to a large scale, complex and challenging situation. I am enormously proud of the efforts of my staff during this testing time. The support we were able to offer to the community helped strengthen our partnerships with the people of Canterbury, government and non-government agencies. We also learned many lessons about how to work more effectively together and we will apply these lessons widely across Corrections and the Justice Sector.

The past year held a number of challenges, but also produced many successes. Today, the Department of Corrections is a well-performing organisation and we are in a strong position to continue to improve public safety, reduce re-offending and deliver better public value.

Ray Smith
Chief Executive