Transparency spotlight on large infrastructure projects

It’s not easy for the public to see how large, public infrastructure projects in New Zealand are performing, with key project documents often being not publicly available or hard to understand.

This is a key finding from new research we commissioned from Massey University. This research looks at the accessibility of key documents for 27 large projects across central and local government. These range in cost from $50m to more than $1b and have a collective value of over $70b. These do not just relate to current projects: they span a wide timeframe - for example, one project began construction in 2012 and 21 projects are still ongoing.

"New Zealand has a long-standing commitment to being open and transparent, and as a result ranks within the top three countries in Transparency International’s Corruptions Perceptions Index," says Ross Copland, CEO of Te Waihanga. "However, information about big investment decisions is not always available to the public.

"New Zealand does not currently have public accountability standards for proactive disclosure for large, public infrastructure projects, so we’re seeing inconsistent performance in how New Zealanders are being kept informed. The research showed that around half of all the Business Case and assurance case documents in these big, public projects were not accessible, and that reviews were not accessible for completed projects."

Allowing New Zealanders to have oversight of what their government’s investing in is a core principle of the New Zealand Infrastructure Strategy.

While large, public infrastructure projects are subject to normal official information processes, web and plain language standards, they‘re not required to proactively publish key documents.

The study gave projects overall ratings out of nine for accessibility of their project documents. For key documents, 37% of projects scored nine out of nine, while 63% scored only three to five. All of the highest-scoring projects were run by an independent board, rather than by a government agency or council, and nearly all were in the $500m plus project category.

However, having a board or a big budget didn’t always mean key documents were ‘accessible’. Because, of the study’s 17 low-scoring projects, 41% also had a board and 23% were in the $500m plus project category.

"The research has shown how good some of these big projects are with proactive disclosure, which is pleasing to see," Copland says. "However, it also shows significant opportunities to improve transparency across our major projects, including increasing the expectations for proactive disclosure."

When project activities and decisions are transparent, New Zealanders are better able to hold government and delivery agencies to account.

What’s next?

We're considering the findings of this research and aim to publish recommendations on how to improve infrastructure investment and performance by the end of the year. As part of this work, we’ll be engaging with a range of entities and agencies that have responsibilities for government processes around transparency and public infrastructure projects.