Audit New Zealand

Report of the Auditor-General

To the readers of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage's financial statements of the for the year ended 30 June 2004.

The Auditor-General is the auditor of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (the Ministry). The Auditor-General has appointed me, Stephen Lucy, using the staff and resources of Audit New Zealand, to carry out the audit of the financial statements of the Ministry, on his behalf, for the year ended 30 June 2004.

Unqualified opinion

We have obtained all the information and explanations we have required.

In our opinion the financial statements of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage on pages 9 to 46:

comply with generally accepted accounting practice in New Zealand; and
fairly reflect:
- the Ministry for Culture and Heritage'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 and
- the assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, contingencies, commitments and trust monies managed by the Ministry on behalf of the Crown for the year ended 30 June 2004 .

Basis of opinion

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.

Audit procedures generally include:

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.

Responsibilities of the Chief Executive and the Auditor

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. In addition, they must fairly reflect the assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, contingencies, commitments and trust monies managed by the Ministry on behalf of the Crown for the year ended 30 June 2004. 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.

Independence

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.

Signature

S. B. Lucy
Audit New Zealand
On behalf of the Auditor-General
Wellington, New Zealand

Matters relating to the electronic presentation of the audited financial statements

This audit report relates to the financial statements of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (the Ministry) for the year ended 30 June 2004 included on the Ministry 's website. The Chief Executive is responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Ministry 's website. We have not been engaged to report on the integrity of the Ministry 's web site. We accept no responsibility for any changes that may have occurred to the financial statements since they were initially presented on the web site.

We have not been engaged to report on any other electronic versions of the Ministry's financial statements, and accept no responsibility for any changes that may have occurred to electronic versions of the financial statements published on other websites and/or published by other electronic means.

The audit report refers only to the financial statements named above. It does not provide an opinion on any other information which may have been hyperlinked to/from these financial statements. If readers of this report are concerned with the inherent risks arising from electronic data communication they should refer to the published hard copy of the audited financial statements and related audit report dated 30 September 2004 to confirm the information included in the audited financial statements presented on this web site.

Legislation in New Zealand governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.