Te Tari Taake Inland Revenue is a relatively large and multi-faceted organisation working to deliver core commitments and support customers alongside additional government priorities.
Governance and planning are helping us prioritise work, allocate resources for best value and manage our risks and performance.
The Executive-level Governance System at Te Tari Taake Inland Revenue helps guide delivery of our plans and manage change.
At the centre, the Commissioner has a dual role as governor and manager of our organisation. He has statutory independence from Ministers to ensure Inland Revenue can levy tax and carry out duties independently.
The Commissioner carries prime responsibility for our performance and must exercise statutory judgement to determine where resources should be focused.
The Commissioner and our Executive Leadership Team make up our Strategic and Investment Board. The Board provides guidance on the overall governance and strategic direction, deciding we want to achieve, by when and what’s important along the way.
Supporting the Board are committees for technical, performance and organisational health, portfolio and data and information governance.
Our governance system evolves over time so that it stays fit for purpose within our changing circumstances and operating environment.
In May 2022, we updated the charters for the board and 2 committees to ensure they are fit for our post-transformation needs. Since then, governance groups have helped Te Tari Taake Inland Revenue to balance competing priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic and to navigate our path forward, including developing a new enterprise strategy and approach to delivery of change.
Risk
Our Executive Leadership Team manages 7 strategic risks that apply to our whole organisation:
- Failure to deliver for customers or government priorities.
- Compliance is reduced to the point of having a material impact on revenue collection for the Crown.
- Inability to ensure continuity of business services.
- Insufficient people capability and capacity to deliver outcomes.
- Our approach to data and information governance is sub-optimal.
- Unexpected negative stakeholder reaction to change.
- Failure to provide appropriate stewardship of the tax and social policy system.
Over the past 2 years, we have evolved our risk management approach to a centralised, more transparent framework of risk and controls. It’s helping us manage risks in a more coordinated way.
Independent advice on risk and assurance
The Commissioner receives independent advice from a committee of external members to help assist him in his statutory and governance responsibilities. They bring a mix of skills in assurance, financial management, risk management and organisational change.
This year, Michael Ahie, Sandie Beatie QSO and Karen Jordan retired from the Committee. New Chair Mark Darrow and Melanie Templeton were joined on the Committee by Howard Fancy, Maria Rawiri and Craig Owen.
Business planning across our organisation rolls up to a high-level enterprise plan that aligns activities to the outcomes outlined in our Statement of Intent (available here).
Priorities this year were:
- delivering and improving services for our customers and managing our performance
- supporting our people in the workplace
- increasing our te ao Māori capability.
To help manage our ability to deliver, we’ve been improving planning processes, prioritising and sequencing initiatives, tracking progress and adjusting to new challenges, risks and opportunities.