Cabinet paper

Cabinet Paper CBC-19-SUB-0018: Embedding wellbeing in the Public Finance Act: Final policy recommendations

Accessible HTML version

Only the Proposal and Executive Summary sections of this Cabinet paper are extracted below in HTML.  If you require a full HTML version please contact [email protected] and cite CBC-19-SUB-0018 as a reference.

Cabinet Paper CBC-19-SUB-0018: Embedding Wellbeing in the Public Finance Act 1989: Final Policy Recommendations#

Proposal

  1. This paper seeks Cabinet’s agreement to amend the Public Finance Act 1989 (the Act) to embed a focus on wellbeing.

Executive Summary

  1. As part of this Government’s work to apply a wellbeing approach within the public service, I am seeking Cabinet’s agreement to amend the Public Finance Act 1989 (the Act) to introduce new requirements for the Government and the Treasury to report on wellbeing.
  2. I am recommending that the Act be amended to require:
    1. the Government to report annually on its wellbeing objectives in the Budget Policy Statement and the Fiscal Strategy Report; and,
    2. the Treasury to report periodically on current and future wellbeing, at least every four years.
  3. These changes would broaden the framework that the Government uses to develop and assess its Budget, and augment the Treasury’s existing reporting on macroeconomic and fiscal indicators.
  4. Legislation is required to take forward the recommendations in this paper. Subject to Cabinet’s agreement, I intend to bring draft legislation to the Cabinet Legislation Committee in August 2019 seeking approval for introduction.

[Extract ends]