Progress on reducing compliance costs

The Government’s Better Public Services for Business (Result 9) programme shows an improvement in reported performance by government agencies, Minister for Economic Development Steven Joyce says.

In 2012, the Government set targets to reduce by 2017 the cost to business of dealing with government by 25 per cent, and to improve performance ratings to levels enjoyed by leading private sector firms.

“The Better for Business programme works in collaboration across a number of agencies to ensure joined-up government services, and an ongoing commitment from agencies to improve interaction and reduce the time spent dealing with government,” Mr Joyce says.

“A Business Reference Group of 1200 SMEs has been established to help track progress in this area. A survey over the last six months reports a net 7 per cent reduction in reported effort since 2012 and a substantial improvement in reported performance by government agencies. The next report, due later this year, will track progress over the first half of 2015.

“Reducing the time and effort that business owners spend on administration allows them to instead focus on growing their businesses.”

Services and programmes being introduced to make things easier for businesses when dealing with government include:

• The New Zealand Business Number Bill, which proposes to extend a single business number for all Kiwi businesses to use in their dealings with government agencies;
• Employer Registration, which registers new companies as an employer with Inland Revenue at the same time as they incorporate their company on the Companies Office website;
• The launch in September 2014 of Compliance Matters, an online tool that makes business compliance requirements easy to find, understand and manage. This complements OneCheck, which allows businesses to check company names, internet domain names and trademarks in one easy transaction; and
• The rollout in November 2014 of FastTrack, a new dispute resolution service that offers a faster way for landlords and tenants to resolve issues.

Another recent innovation recognises the significance of Trans-Tasman trade for New Zealand companies. A mobile app that allows users to search both the Companies Office and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission registers at the same time provides access to more than 2.5 million New Zealand and Australian companies, as well as 1.7 million organisations on the Australian Business Names Register.

“The public sector is making promising progress towards the Result 9 targets,” Mr Joyce says. “New Zealand is already rated as one of the easiest places in the world to do business.

“However, more work is needed to achieve the challenging goals that the Government has set for 2017, which will ultimately give New Zealand businesses a competitive edge in the global marketplace.”

The Better Public Service Results February 2015 update can be found at: www.ssc.govt.nz/better-public-services