Better public value

Freeing up resources while improving our service responses

In everything we do, we will strive to deliver the best value to the public of New Zealand. We will build the public’s confidence that it has a Corrections system that is using taxpayers’ resources wisely to achieve its outcomes. We will ensure that we streamline
every activity to focus it on reducing re-offending and improving public safety. We will provide a work environment that supports creating lasting change.

We have committed to achieving a 25 percent reduction in re-offending by 2017. Corrections is taking a fundamental look at how it is structured and how it utilises its resources so it can achieve this goal within its current financial means.

We will succeed in providing better public value by:

  • implementing the results of the Cabinet-mandated Expenditure Review, taking opportunities to reprioritise investment to higher value priorities, and providing a 10-year pathway so that no increase in baseline funding will be required
  • introducing greater “contracting for results”, providing smarter incentives to our partners to be more effective in reducing re-offending
  • learning from and benchmarking our performance against the contract-managed Mt. Eden Corrections Facility and, when built, the new prison at Wiri.

We will continue to monitor how we are performing through:

  • the cost per prisoner per day
  • the cost to supervise each community sentence and order
  • our performance against our budget.

Capital and asset management intentions

The Department will ensure that its capital assets are deployed in the most effective manner to achieve its organisational objectives. We manage over $1.9 billion worth of facilities, including 19 prisons and 126 community probation sites. Effectively managing this portfolio to ensure we deliver the best value to the public is a key part of our undertaking to create lasting change.

We will succeed in providing better public value through our capital and asset management by:

  • modernising Community Probation Service Centres, creating ‘hubs’ that encourage more efficient interactions between Corrections staff, offenders and local service providers in the community
  • modernising our prisons, to give frontline staff more time to engage and interact with prisoners
  • decommissioning prison facilities that have reached their end of life or that are not optimally reducing re-offending
  • divesting underperforming assets and maximising the utility of our facilities through co-location of some services.

Information technology

Information technology is vital to all aspects of our work. In order to effectively manage offenders we need information to be reliable, readily accessible, and secure. We will take advantage of new developments in technology to enable us to work faster, smarter
and more efficiently to reduce re-offending and ensure public safety.

We will succeed in providing better public value through our information technology by:

  • equipping our staff to operate in more effective and mobile ways through more modern and flexible information technology applications
  • expanding the use of audio-visual technology between prisons and courts, and exploring wider uses
  • completing the upgrade of our Integrated Offender Management System to better enable us to achieve our outcomes.