7. Resource Needs and Allocations
A fixed budget places pressure on Commerce's ability to meet Government expectations for policy advice on its strategic priorities, to strengthen its core capabilities, and to deliver high quality services.
The nature of these requirements, and how the Ministry is addressing them, are described elsewhere in this document - but they all come at a cost.
The pressures are likely to be greatest in the policy and capability or ownership areas. Other areas of Commerce's activities, including administering legislation and providing services, may be better positioned to respond to increasing demand, in part because many of them are third party funded, but they too will face cost pressures and be required to sustain their efforts to reduce the costs of their services. Policy development cannot be cross-subsidised from these areas.
It is fundamental to the achievement of this plan that Commerce will continue, in its planning and budgetary cycle, to:
- identify its priorities;
- redeploy resources as necessary to these priority areas; and
- seek ongoing efficiency gains.
The following table shows the current allocation of financial resources across the three major categories of Commerce's activities (figures rounded)
Financial and Staff Allocations by Function, 1999/2000
| | $millions | Percentage |
|---|
| Policy advice, Crown funded, relating to SRAs (for example, removing barriers to growth, reviewing business and consumer law, improving regulatory regimes, improving access to overseas markets) and Ministerial Servicing | 15.7 | 18 |
| Activities principally Crown funded relating to the administration of legislation (for example, trade measurement, trade remedies, insolvencies) | 24.8 | 28 |
| Activities principally third party funded (for example, trademarks registration, Companies Office services, gas and electricity regulation, radio communications) | 47.1 | 54 |
| Totals | 87.6 | 100 |
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