Yes, I could.
One of the offices is very important to the parliamentary process of considering expenditure approvals.
There are three officers of Parliament in New Zealand. The oldest is the ombudsman, the office that I hold, which is traditional ombudsman work in terms of looking at allegations of maladministration throughout the public sector. And also in New Zealand, the ombudsman is the adjudicator on disputes over access to freedom of information. But there isn't a great deal of ongoing, day-to-day contact between the ombudsman and the way in which Parliament works.
A second officer of Parliament in our system is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who is an independent official who will launch inquiries into policies or actions that have environmental consequences or implications. It's a voice outside government to which groups can turn when they think something is going to have an adverse consequence for the environment, which can then be investigated and reported to Parliament. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment becomes involved with parliamentary committees if they're carrying out an inquiry with environmental implications, but it's a very occasional involvement with the work of Parliament.
The third official is the Auditor General. The Auditor General's Office does have an ongoing relationship with Parliament because the Auditor General's staff are available to be attached to parliamentary committees, especially when they're doing the post-budget review of the way in which governments and departments use their expenditure authority. The Auditor General's staff are also available during the estimates, but I don't think that committees find the Auditor General's staff as useful in their estimate approval process as they do in their post-budget analysis, because that's where the Auditor General's particular strengths are brought to bear.
Although we don't have a parliamentary budget office, there is support available from the Office of the Auditor General to parliamentarians in their budget approval and in their post-budget analysis phases.