Public service Māori capability: what the 2026 Auditor-General report found

The Office of the Auditor-General released its report Improving the public service's capability to engage with Māori on 23 April 2026. The report examined what progress public service agencies have made on a five-year-old statutory obligation, and the answer it gave is a familiar one for anyone working at the intersection of legal frameworks and operational practice.

This post covers what the report examined, the headline findings, and what we think it means for Crown agencies and for Māori organisations engaging with them.

What the report examined

Section 14 of the Public Service Act 2020 makes the Public Service Commissioner and chief executives responsible for developing and maintaining the capability of the public service to engage with Māori and to understand Māori perspectives. The Auditor-General set out to assess what progress had been made in the five years since the obligation took effect.

The report looked at three things. The planning and public reporting of public service agencies generally. The system-level oversight provided by Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Kawa Mataaho. And the specific capability work of three large agencies that engage often with Māori: the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Internal Affairs.

The headline findings

Three findings stand out:

1. Public reporting is poor. The AG found that the overall quality and detail of public reporting on Māori-engagement capability made it difficult to assess collective progress. Some agencies report well; many don't.

2. Investment doesn't translate to capability evenly. The three agencies looked at have all invested in capability, but the report identified a lack of clear understanding of existing capability and needs, which affects how investment is prioritised.

3. System-level oversight has been weak. Since the Act introduced the requirement, the system-lead agencies (Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Kawa Mataaho) have not had consistent and reliable information on agency progress. This has made it difficult to hold chief executives to account.

What this means for Crown agencies

The AG made specific recommendations for all public service agencies and for the three named in the review. The substance is straightforward: assess the capability needs of different roles, prioritise investment to areas most likely to lead to better support and services for Māori, and improve public reporting on what's being done and what it's achieving.

Two things are worth holding onto:

1. First, the report is specific about what good public reporting looks like: the range of capability-building activities, the costs, the outcomes sought with balanced reporting on progress, and information on how capability has been applied in practice. That's a tighter standard than most agencies are currently meeting.

2. Second, the AG recommends that Te Kawa Mataaho's annual chief executive performance reviews include formal input from Te Puni Kōkiri on the agency's performance for Māori. That's a meaningful change in accountability architecture, and it shifts how capability will be measured in chief executive evaluations going forward.

What this means for Māori organisations engaging with the Crown

For Māori organisations, PSGEs, and iwi entities engaging with public service agencies, the report is useful in a way reports of this kind often aren't. It puts on paper what many people working with the Crown have been observing for years: agency frameworks for Māori engagement are typically more sophisticated than the operational decisions being made downstream of them.

Two practical implications:

1. In any specific engagement, it's reasonable to ask the Crown agency how they assess their own capability against the AG's recommendations and what they're reporting publicly. The framework for that question is now in the open, and the agency has to engage with it.

2. The recommendations also create an opening to push for engagement that's grounded in real capability rather than process. If the AG is naming the gap between framework and operational delivery, there's external authority for raising the same point in specific work.

Pātai

Where can I read the full report? The Office of the Auditor-General publishes the report at ao.parliament.nz. Both an English summary and a te reo Māori whakarāpopoto are available.

Which three agencies were looked at? The Ministry for Primary Industries, the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Internal Affairs.

What's the Public Service Act 2020 obligation? Section 14 makes the Public Service Commissioner and public service chief executives responsible for developing and maintaining the capability of the public service to engage with Māori and understand Māori perspectives.

What changes from this report? The AG's recommendations are addressed to all public service agencies and to system-lead agencies. Watch the next round of agency annual reports for evidence of changes in public reporting; that's where the AG's central recommendation lands.

If you're working on Crown engagement or Māori-capability questions on either side of the table, get in touch.

Incorporated Societies Act 2022: what Māori organisations need to know about re-registration

The Incorporated Societies Act 2022 replaced the long-standing 1908 Act. Every existing incorporated society had to re-register under the new framework or be deemed to have ceased to exist. For Māori organisations operating under IS structure (marae committees, kapa haka rōpū, sports clubs, hapū-aligned entities) the new framework brought specific requirements that are worth understanding even now the formal window has closed.

This post covers what the Act required, the deadline, what to do if you've missed it, and what we found mattered most when we supported Māori organisations through the process.

What the Act required

Three substantive changes from the 1908 Act sit at the centre of the new framework.

A new constitution. Every re-registering society had to adopt a constitution that complies with the 2022 Act. The Act prescribes content: officers and committees, financial reporting tier, member rights, and a dispute-resolution mechanism. Constitutions written in the 1990s or earlier almost never met the new content requirements without amendment.

A formal dispute-resolution process. This is now mandatory in the constitution. The Act sets out minimum standards but leaves design to the society. For Māori organisations, this is a genuine drafting exercise: a tikanga-aligned process can be written into the constitution, but it has to be designed.

Tighter financial reporting. Three tiers based on size of operations, with annual returns to the Companies Office under the Charities Act framework where applicable. Most Māori organisations sit in the lower-tier category but the obligations are firmer than under the 1908 framework.

The deadline and what happens if you've missed it

The re-registration window has now closed. Organisations that didn't re-register within the prescribed period are treated as having ceased to exist as incorporated societies under the new Act.

If you've missed the deadline, the short answer is: get advice early. There are pathways open, but they involve fresh process. Reinstatement is not automatic, and the timing affects what's possible. The longer the gap, the more complex the work to recover the entity's standing or to set up a successor vehicle.

If you'd like to talk through where your organisation sits, get in touch. The first conversation is free and we can usually tell you within the first call whether reinstatement is the right path or whether a different structure now makes more sense.

What Māori organisations had to work through

When we supported Māori organisations through re-registration, three patterns came up repeatedly. They're worth knowing about whether you re-registered on time or are looking at the work now.

Dispute-resolution clauses no one had read. Many existing constitutions had nothing on dispute resolution, or had clauses that defaulted to mainstream processes that didn't fit the organisation's tikanga. The new Act forces the conversation: how does this organisation actually want disputes handled? It's rarely a question the committee has had to answer formally before.

Decision-making rights that had drifted. Voting thresholds, quorum requirements, who could put a motion on the agenda. These were often unclear or out of step with practice. Re-registration was a chance to decide what's right going forward, not just preserve what the document had said in 2003.

The relationship with the iwi or hapū political layer. Some IS-structured entities sat under wider iwi or hapū authority, but the constitution didn't reflect that relationship. Where it didn't, re-registration was an opportunity to make the relationship visible in the document.

Drafting and facilitating in te reo Māori

For organisations whose tikanga and reo are part of how they actually function, the new constitution can be drafted and adopted in te reo Māori. This is a specific service that not every legal practice can offer.

Drafting in te reo first (rather than English first and translating) produces a different document. Te reo carries structures and registers that English approximations sometimes lose. For organisations whose working language is te reo, having the constitution sit in that register matters legally and practically.

AGM facilitation in te reo keeps the kōrero in the language of the organisation. Members engage differently in the substance of the new constitution because the discussion is in their reo. Decisions land with more clarity.

Voting and recording in te reo works the same way as in English under the Act. The minutes and the formal record can be in te reo, with an English version available where external parties (banks, registry, funders) require it.

What to do next

If you completed re-registration: keep the conversation about the constitution open. Set a five-year cadence to look at it again. The document is current to 2026; the next drift starts immediately.

If you didn't re-register and the entity has lost its status: seek advice early. The work to reinstate or to set up a successor entity is meaningfully different depending on how long it's been. We can usually scope this in a first conversation.

If your organisation is considering whether IS structure is still the right vehicle: this is the question worth asking. Sometimes a charitable trust or another structure suits the organisation better than reinstating the IS. Re-registration was a forcing function for many organisations to ask this question; missing the deadline is a different forcing function for the same review.

Common questions

What was the re-registration deadline under the Inc Soc Act 2022? The original deadline was 5 April 2026. The window has now closed. Organisations that didn't re-register are treated as having ceased to exist under the new Act.

What happens to a society that didn't re-register? The entity loses its incorporated status. Property and contracts vested in the society fall into uncertain ownership, which is why early advice matters. Reinstatement is possible in some circumstances but not automatic.

Can a constitution be drafted in te reo Māori only? Yes. For practical reasons (banks, the registry, external funders) a corresponding English version is usually prudent. The te reo version can be the primary; the English follows.

How long does re-registration or reinstatement take? Re-registration typically ran six to twelve weeks of work for organisations that engaged early. Reinstatement is usually longer because it requires fresh process. We can scope timing in a first conversation.

If you're working through any of this, get in touch.