Financial Performance 2003/04

Ministry Performance for the Year Ended 30 June 2004
This section covers:

The Statement of Responsibility

The Report of the Auditor-General

• Ministry Performance
  • Output Class Service Performance
  • Departmental Financial Statements
  • Non-departmental Financial Statements

STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY

In terms of sections 35 and 37 of the Public Finance Act 1989, I am responsible, as the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Fisheries, for the preparation of the Ministry’s financial statements and the judgements made in the process of producing those statements.

I have the responsibility of establishing and maintaining, and I have established and maintained, a system of internal control procedures that provide reasonable assurance as to the integrity and reliability of financial reporting.

In my opinion, these financial statements fairly reflect the financial position and operations of the Ministry for the year ended 30 June 2004, and I authorise issuance of these financial statements on 17 September 2004.

Warwick Tuck Chief Executive	Peter Murray General Manager - Corporate Services

REPORT OF THE AUDITOR-GENERAL

TO THE READERS OF THE MINISTRY OF FISHERIES' FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2004

The Auditor-General is the auditor of the Ministry of Fisheries (the Ministry). The Auditor-General has appointed me, Grant J Taylor, using the staff and resources of Ernst & Young, to carry out the audit of the financial statements of the Ministry, comprising the Statement of Accounting Policies, Statement of Financial Performance, Statement of Movements in Taxpayers' Funds, Statement of Financial Position, Statement of Cash Flows, Statement of Commitments, Statement of Contingent Liabilities, Statement of Expenditure Appropriations, Statement of Unappropriated Expenditure, Notes 1 to 19 to the Financial Statements, Statement of Non-Departmental Accounting Policies, Non Departmental Schedule of Revenue and Expenditure, Non Departmental Schedule of Assets and Liabilities and Notes 1 to 10 to the Non Departmental Financial Schedules, on his behalf, for the year ended 30 June 2004.

In our opinion the financial statements of the Ministry:

• comply with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand; and
• fairly reflect:
  • the Ministry's financial position as at 30 June 2004;
  • the results of its operations and cash flows for the year ended on that date; and
  • its service performance achievements measured against the performance targets adopted for the year ended on that date.

The audit was completed on 17 September 2004, and is the date at which our opinion is expressed.

The basis of the opinion is explained below. In addition, we outline the responsibilities of the Chief Executive and the Auditor, and explain our independence.

We carried out the audit in accordance with the Auditor-General's Auditing Standards, which incorporate the New Zealand Auditing Standards.

We planned and performed our audit to obtain all the information and explanations we considered necessary in order to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements did not have material misstatements, whether caused by fraud or error.

Material misstatements are differences or omissions of amounts and disclosures that would affect a reader's overall understanding of the financial statements. If we had found material misstatements that were not corrected, we would have referred to them in the opinion.

Our audit involved performing procedures to test the information presented in the financial statements. We assessed the results of those procedures in forming our opinion.

• determining whether significant financial and management controls are working and can be relied on to produce complete and accurate data;
• verifying samples of transactions and account balances;
• performing analyses to identify anomalies in the reported data;
• reviewing significant estimates and judgements made by the Chief Executive;
• confirming year-end balances;
• determining whether accounting policies are appropriate and consistently applied; and
• determining whether all financial statement disclosures are adequate.

We did not examine every transaction, nor do we guarantee complete accuracy of the financial statements.

We evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation of information in the financial statements. We obtained all the information and explanations we required to support the opinion above.

The Chief Executive is responsible for preparing financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand. Those financial statements must fairly reflect the financial position of the Ministry as at 30 June 2004. They must also fairly reflect the results of its operations and cash flows and service performance achievements for the year ended on that date. The Chief Executive's responsibilities arise from the Public Finance Act 1989.

We are responsible for expressing an independent opinion on the financial statements and reporting that opinion to you. This responsibility arises from section 15 of the Public Audit Act 2001 and Section 38(1) of the Public Finance Act 1989.

When carrying out the audit we followed the independence requirements of the Auditor-General, which incorporate the independence requirements of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand.

Other than the audit, we have no relationship with or interests in the Ministry.

G J Taylor
Ernst & Young
On behalf of the Auditor-General, Wellington, New Zealand