Crown Financial Institutions

The CFI grouping is not based on State Sector organisational design principles, therefore from time to time the CFIs have differing legal frameworks.

Currently there are five CFIs:

• the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF), the Government Superannuation Fund Authority (GSF), the Earthquake Commission (EQC), the investments of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC)[1], which are all statutory Crown entities, and
• the National Provident Fund (NPF), which is known as an other statutory board.

The CFI’s financial assets are held to pre-fund future expenditure, either for specific liabilities (GSF, EQC and ACC) or expected future expenditure (NZSF and NPF).

The approach to portfolio management varies between the CFIs. The complexity of a CFI’s portfolio and the degree to which it outsources key functions plays a big role in shaping the appropriate form of portfolio management for that institution.

COMU periodically releases quarterly monitoring reports it prepares on the performance of CFIs.

All the CFIs have individual establishing legislation and the statutory Crown entities are all subject to Crown Entities Act 2004 (Legislation website).

The CFIs all have one Responsible Minister. The board of directors of each CFI is appointed by the Minister and is accountable to the Minister for the performance of that CFI. Amongst other things, CFIs are required to produce an Annual Report, which must be presented to the House of Representatives by the Responsible Minister. The CFIs that are statutory Crown entities are also required to produce an annual Statement of Intent, which is presented to the House of Representatives.

The Responsible Minister can remove members of the boards of ACC and the Earthquake Commission at the Minister’s discretion.

The Responsible Minister can remove members of the boards of the Government Superannuation Fund Authority and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund for any reason that, in the Minister’s opinion, justifies the removal.

The Responsible Minister can remove members of the National Provident Fund Board at any time.

Further information and guidance for Crown entities and other bodies can be located in the Crown Entities section on the State Services Commission website.