Ensuring MPI remains a trusted and effective regulator
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is one of the largest government regulators in the country administering more than 50 Acts of Parliament in agriculture, biosecurity, food safety, forestry, fisheries, trade, and animal welfare.
People within MPI and agencies outside MPI undertake a variety of regulatory responsibilities to ensure the smooth functioning of New Zealand's primary industries regulatory systems.
The Office of the Inspector General Regulatory Systems was set up in 2019 to:
- provide impartial advice to the Director-General on the health of MPI's regulatory systems
- help MPI remain an effective and trusted regulator.
The office sits within MPI but is independent of its business units. The work of the office includes:
- undertaking proactive and reactive reviews on regulatory matters as agreed with or requested by MPI's Director-General
- keeping abreast of new and revised MPI-related legislation and regulations, and internationally developing regulatory practice
- providing thought leadership and insights to MPI's senior leaders on regulatory risk regulatory system stewardship.
Reviews of MPI's regulatory systems
The Inspector General Regulatory Systems maintains a work programme of regulatory reviews to examine each of MPI's regulatory systems over time. Reports from reviews are published on this page.
Inspector General Regulatory Systems work programme [DOCX, 25 KB]
The Inspector General Regulatory Systems:
- may consider any part or aspect of any primary sector regulatory system, seeking ways that MPI’s regulatory practice could be improved
- has developed a framework to guide reviews. This is a developing framework and will change as regulatory practice emerges and changes.
Review framework used by the Office of the Inspector General Regulatory Systems [PPTX, 309 KB]
What the reviews can cover
The reviews can look at any aspect of the regulatory systems managed and administered by MPI.
They can:
- cover an entire system or subsystem
- focus on specific parts of the system (for example, the regulation of large dairy processing under the Animal Products Act 1999)
- look at component elements of regulatory practice across multiple systems (for example, compliance and enforcement or cost recovery across regulatory systems).
