Governance arrangements and executive sponsor at Reserve Bank of New Zealand
Find out how the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua achieved the top maturity rating of ‘Optimising’ for information governance and the executive sponsor in an information management maturity assessment from their audit under the Public Records Act 2005.
Communication, collaboration and continuous improvement
3 ‘C’s — communication, collaboration and continuous improvement — are driving the information management strategy at New Zealand’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua.
Over the past 2 years, the central bank’s information management capability — and role as kaitiaki for New Zealand’s financial system — has been strengthened under a targeted approach, prioritised and championed by senior leadership.
The 2023 audit, conducted under the Public Records Act 2005 (the Act), assessed Te Pūtea Matua at the top information management (IM) maturity rating of ‘Optimising’ for governance arrangements and the executive sponsor.
Read the full Public Records Act Audit Report for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand -Te Pūtea Matua
Reserve Bank of NZ – Te Pūtea Matua
Te Pūtea Matua creates public records related to its statutory functions. These functions range from implementing monetary policy and acting as prudential regulator and supervisor, to monitoring the financial system, operating payment systems along with stewardship for money and cash and the broader currency system.
With 500 kaimahi (staff) including many researchers and economists, Te Pūtea Matua is a data and information-intensive environment. In 2022, the Reserve Bank’s information and data management services were reorganised under the newly created role of the Assistant Governor/General Manager Information, Data, and Analytics who is responsible as executive sponsor for data and information governance.
The role of the executive sponsor
In a public sector organisation, the executive sponsor has strategic and executive responsibility for overseeing information and records management.
The Act requires the public sector to create and maintain full, accurate and accessible records of government affairs. Information and records must be trustworthy, and accessible for use until their authorised disposal.
The Reserve Bank’s executive sponsor oversees directorates responsible for:
knowledge and information management
data, statistics and analytics.
Prior to 2022, these functions had operated independently in different parts of the organisation but were brought together as part of a new strategic focus.
Developing maturity
The Act provides tools and empowers the Poumanaaki Chief Archivist and Te Rua Mahara to support public sector organisations with the creation, management, disposal and preservation of information and records, including data. This includes scheduled third party, point in time audits aimed at improving information management maturity.
An IM maturity assessment can:
identify areas for improvement
track organisational trends over time
provide data to support IM strategies, plans and business cases.
Strategy for maturity
The executive sponsor at Te Pūtea Matua has direct responsibility for 2 directorates which operated separately before 2022.
The Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) directorate provides knowledge, records, library and research services, as well as data and information architecture, platforms and strategy and the data and information governance office.
The Data, Statistics and Analytics directorate provides official statistics on NZ’s financial system, collects, designs and builds data, insights and analytics to support decision-making.
The executive sponsor also proactively pursues the role of advocate-in-chief for good information governance, flying the flag at all levels of Te Pūtea Matua, and encouraging senior leadership to champion good IM practices.
Communication
Communication happens at every level. The executive sponsor leads town hall presentations, records management team members conduct onboarding inductions for new staff, and all staff can access online training modules on records and IM. Regular intranet articles, staff newsletters, screensavers, active business engagement and a voice at senior leadership feature in the communication lines used to keep good information and data management top of mind across the organisation.
Along with this, there’s an intentional effort at keeping communications in plain language, avoiding terminology and jargon.
Collaboration
Collaboration allows the KIM team to gain the business literacy that’s required for informing good IM and which, in turn, facilitates effective risk management. At Te Pūtea Matua this involves networking within the organisation, sitting in with business units as the IM experts seek to understand their IM needs, what’s happening and the outcomes expected.
This collaborative approach also includes the monthly data and information governance forum, facilitated by the KIM team and including multi-level representation from all departments in Te Pūtea Matua.
To help understand the needs of the various business streams and how IM can best enable their projects, the team developed a series of personas based on the Reserve Bank's varied roles as producers, consumers and decision-makers. The executive sponsor sat in on all these interviews.
IM planning is integrated into every new project, from the start, and covering the whole data process from collection to impact. This includes only collecting information that’s relevant to the Reserve Bank's mahi and following best practice from meta data capture and privacy through to release of information.
Continuous improvement
The KIM directorate — as Te Pūtea Matua data and information stewards — follows processes that aspire to provide a ‘frictionless experience’.
The executive sponsor has 2 workflow charts that depict a detailed description of the processes followed:
a data and information strategic roadmap — setting out the vision, principles, processes, objectives and practices behind the delivery of the IM strategy
a data and information value chain — articulating the lifecycle of information through multiple steps ensuring it’s understood, managed and secure from beginning to end. Feedback across the chain ensures continuous improvement is embedded in the processes.
Good governance
High quality recordkeeping at Te Pūtea Matua is the result of good governance underpinned by good strategy.
The Reserve Bank's executive sponsor is responsible for IM in executive leadership strategy and business planning sessions, and is involved in relevant governance committees and forums. IM is addressed as part of solution design, project delivery, as well as risk management at an organisation-wide level.
Since starting in the position 2 years ago, the executive sponsor has delivered an information and data strategy that enabled an uplift in data and information governance, information management, platforms and processes to promote the continuous improvement of IM practices. This has enabled an IM capability uplift and KIM kaimahi to be recognised for their experience, and enabled the establishment of a capability which includes a commitment to good information management and governance at its core.
Optimising for success
The management of information is a discipline that needs to be owned from the top down within a public sector organisation. The requirements in the IM Maturity Assessment governance topic are those that need senior-level vision and support to manage government information and ensure effective business outcomes for the organisation, the government and New Zealanders.
At Te Pūtea Matua, the knowledge and information management team works in partnership across the entire organisation as trusted advisers in ways that go beyond providing services that merely enable.
Te Rua Mahara audit summary found that the executive sponsor consistently fulfilled their oversight and monitoring role. As the topic of governance was assessed at ‘Optimising’, no recommendation was made.
Sharing good practice beyond audit webinar
This case study was originally presented as part of a joint webinar we organised on sharing good practice beyond audit. This was an opportunity for both Executive Sponsors and government IM practitioners to listen and share IM practice across the sector.
Watch the full Sharing good practice beyond audit webinar
The speakers shared their practice approach on specific topics from the Information Management Maturity Assessment:
Kate Kolich: Topic 3 Governance and the Executive Sponsor (presentation begins at 13 minutes into the webinar video)
Ralph Chivers: Topic 11 High-value/High-risk information (presentation begins at 34 minutes into the webinar video)
Helen Quaggin-Molloy: Topic 1 IM Strategy (presentation begins at 55 minutes into the webinar video).
Kate Kolich is the Assistant Governor/General Manager Information, Data, and Analytics and Executive Sponsor at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
Ralph Chivers is the Acting General Manager of Organisation Performance and Executive Sponsor at the Commerce Commission New Zealand.
Helen Quaggin-Molloy is the Manager, Information and Knowledge Management at the Office of the Ombudsman New Zealand.