The Treasury

The Treasury

Context

The Treasury is the Government's leading adviser on economic and financial policy. Treasury advises the government about getting best quality and value from public spending and provides advice to the Minister of Finance and Cabinet.

At an operational level, Treasury manages the Crown's liabilities, monitors significant assets, and manages the Budget process and Crown financial position. Treasury also manages New Zealand's relationships with international financial institutions, including the IMF and the World Bank.

The Treasury E-government Initiatives

• Website redesign

Summary

Ready Access: The Treasury provides ready access to high quality information on its website. People can also find Treasury information and services through the government portal. Further opportunities exist for Treasury to create more metadata records.

Alignment: Websites are used to provide information about Treasury and for people to access Treasury's reports. A new website will improve access to this information. For the last two years, an Internet enabled system has been used to collate financial information from 240 government agencies.

Internet and Communications Technology

Treasury operates a number of websites. In addition to the main site, Treasury manages the websites of the New Zealand Debt Management Office and the Export Credit Office. The Treasury does not manage the website of the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit (CCMAU) which is a semi-autonomous unit. As Treasury has minimal direct involvement with the public, the website content tends to be highly technical and aimed at specific audiences, such as businesses, banks, overseas investors, economic and financial analysts and academics.

Treasury intends to redesign the main website during the 04/05 financial year. Compliance with the Government Web Guidelines will be a priority. Greater use of plain English on the new website could improve the public's understanding about Treasury, its relationships to other agencies and its long term objectives for New Zealand's economy.

Central to Treasury's external information gathering is the Crown Financial Information System (CFISnet). The system is used by approximately 240 agencies for Crown financial management. Ongoing changes and enhancements to CFISnet, including a web-based interface several years ago, continue to improve the system, its functionality, effectiveness and accessibility.

Because CFISnet contains highly sensitive financial information, secure access is important. Communications are encrypted and digital certificates and tokens are used for authentication.

The Treasury's need to protect and share SENSITIVE information within government has led to its key roles in the SEE PKI, SEEMail and Shared Workspace projects, and the ongoing provision of security advice to the E-government Unit.

Treasury has developed other information management applications in-house, primarily for cost effectiveness reasons, but also to ensure that the applications closely match Treasury's requirements. Treasury has shared application code and expertise in the past, which has for example, including sharing code for its Nga Ingoa internal directory, knowledge management expertise, and remote access expertise.

Ready Access to Information and Services

Metadata

Treasury has 15 metadata records in the Metalogue. These consist of seven services, seven documents, and one agency record. There are some opportunities for additional metadata. All links are current and documents and services appear up to date. Metadata is reasonably well written for a general audience.

Website Assessment

Websites assessed during May 2004 included:

www.treasury.govt.nz
www.ccmau.govt.nz
www.treasury.govt.nz/exportcreditoffice/

but excluded the Debt Management Office site.

Overall, Treasury's websites are of a good standard.

The strengths of the sites are in required government content and information delivery. In future, the usability of the sites could be improved.

The majority of the information and services Treasury is required to provide can be readily accessed on its websites.

Key quality issues noted during the assessment included:

• Good range, depth and presentation of information and services content.
• Usability and site navigation could be improved for easier use.
• Writing can include acronyms and appear theoretical, restricting the eligible reading level of the audience.
• Missing website policies mean users are unsure about feedback, privacy, copyright and complaints.
• Missing accessibility features, such as navigation skipping, access keys and style sheet problems may impede some physically impaired people's access.
• The addition of consultation documents would make it easier for people to offer feedback on proposed changes to policy or procedures.
• Some documents are in PDF only, excluding those users who are unable or unwilling to read this format.
• Contact details could be more specific to enable responsive handling of enquires.

Alignment With E-government Goals

Convenience and Satisfaction

The Internet has improved people's access to Treasury information. Many of Treasury's reports can be reached from the website, including consultation drafts and working papers for policy development.

Integration and Efficiency

Operational systems are increasingly using the Internet to become more integrated. Nevertheless, most information and data sharing with external sources is less structured. Consequently, most information integration occurs when Treasury purchases specific information needed for analysis or reporting.

Participation

Treasury's main contribution to participation is to ensure that its role and function are understood, and that Crown finance information is readily available.

There are some opportunities outlined on the website for people to participate in government. For example, information is available about Treasury's Academic Linkages Programme that includes a Guest Lecture Series.