New Planning System For New Zealand

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 17

New Planning System For New Zealand

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 20. If the National Development Conference’s targets are to be achieved, financialmanagement techniques must be efficient and up-to-date, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Marshall, said on Thursday. He was addressing the Auckland Accountant Students’ Society. The Government had decided to introduce a new system of finxial management incorporate planning, programming and budgeting. As a first step, a new integrated system of Government accounting, giv-

ing the data-base on which to develop analytical proce- . dures, had been introduced, s he said. This was in preparation for t a planning programming , and budgeting system de- , veloped in the United States. . This system seeks to accom- ■ plish the “careful identifies- . tion and examination of the goals and objectives in each . major area of Government . activity and the analysis of . output of a given programme in terms of its ob- : jectives.” The Department of Statistics was in the process of introducing S.N.A. or “system of national accounts” to the country, said Mr Marshall. The system was developed by United Nations statisticians and will be applied first to Government and local-body accountancy, and by 1974 or 1975 should be functioning in all areas of the economy. “It is a consistent system which will provide some of the statistics necessary for economic planning,” said Mr Marshall. “It- will provide a comprehensive and detailed framework for the recording of the flows and stocks of the economy. “The information will be collected by the statistics department, processed, published and made available to the planners. When we have it working fully, we will know much earlier, and we will have a much clearer picture, of what is going on in the economy. “Planners will be more certain of the predictions and projections they make, and the policy-makers are going to be better able to judge the future effects of their decisions,” he said.