The Year at a Glance
IN 2015/16 THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS:
Stewardship, financial health and sustainability
- revised and updated its financial strategy feeding into Budget 2016
- established an independent advisory board who will be responsible for monitoring and providing oversight of the Department’s major outsourced contracts and to provide independent advice and expertise on the management of these contracts
- took over management of the Mount Eden Corrections Facility (MECF) in the short to medium term while allowing for consideration of options for a future, permanent management arrangement of this site to be assessed
- reviewed the performance of offender employment activities and operations
- commenced a Prison Capacity Build Programme, phased over the next four years, to restore the network’s essential capacity buffer ensuring sufficient capacity is available to accommodate the continued prison population growth forecast.
Financial improvements
- decommissioned a number of beds across Waikeria, Tongariro and Rimutaka Prisons following the opening of the new Auckland South Corrections Facility. The decommissioned beds were expensive to operate and maintain, presented a range of seismic-related risks and were at the end of their useful life. Remaining beds originally scheduled for decommissioning continue to be used at Waikeria Prison to help us manage the ongoing increase in the prison population while the Prison Capacity Build Programme is undertaken
- realised better value for money through a significant step change in the use of technology, coverage and response times following the consolidation of electronic monitoring contracts into a single supplier
- implemented staffing structure changes within prisons to unify the delivery of services which will drive longer term sustainable efficiencies.
Expenditure
- managed its $1.3 billion operating budget to approximately 1% of appropriation (excluding remeasurements), at a time when the Department was managing significant fiscal pressures associated with operational challenges and disruptions to its operating environment (including the Step-In at MECF, rising prison population etc.)
- reinvested $20 million in initiatives designed to reduce re-offending
- invested $246.7 million of capital spend including property and prison development projects.
Financial pressures
- self-funded the financial impact of the Collective Bargaining Round, incremental facilities costs such as rates increases, and increased depreciation costs related to the revaluation of land and buildings as at 30 June 2014 within the existing budget baseline
- absorbed the impact of volatile commodity prices associated with offender employment activities, in particular the impact that a further reduction in milk prices had on revenue from dairy operations
- self-funded new and mandatory activity across our business following health and safety legislative changes
- managed significant pressure from the continued growth in prison population above that projected by the Justice Sector forecast.