Hamish Rutherford has a new story up at Stuff on the review of aspects of the governance of the Reserve Bank undertaken earlier this year by former State Services Commissioner (and former Treasury Deputy Secretary for macro matters) Iain Rennie.  The report was undertaken for Treasury, at the request of the Minister of Finance.  The final report was, we’ve been told, delivered in mid-April.

I’ve written about this a review a few times:

• when we first learned of the review in early April
• when Treasury released the terms of engagement (but not the terms of reference) in June
• when we learned in July who Rennie had consulted, and who his report had been peer-reviewed by.

But still the review report has not been released, and nor is Treasury willing to release either earlier drafts of the report, or the comments made by reviewers.

Today’s article appears to be prompted by some observations from ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie,

Cameron Bagrie, chief economist for ANZ, said without the terms of reference he was “flying a bit blind”, but it was possible the review was headed towards recommending a model used across the Tasman, where powers are split between the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA).
“The consensus seems to be that the review is about monetary policy,” Bagrie said.
“I suspect it’s broader and maybe they are looking at whether we have an Australian model where they have the RBA for monetary policy, financial stability, markets, payments et al and APRA for the prudential/regulatory side.”

I’m quoted in Rutherford’s article.  As I’ve said previously, I’d be really surprised if Rennie was recommending a structural separation (along the lines of Australia).  There are all sorts of models internationally, but I haven’t heard anyone in New Zealand for some years seriously propose structural separation (I may at times have advocated such a split in the past), especially since the British government a few years brought the regulatory functions back under the same roof as monetary policy.   There are separate statutory committees for each main function, but they are all conducted out of the Bank of England.  If anything, the global trend in recent years has been to emphasise the important overlaps or crossovers between monetary policy and financial stability, if only in respect of the underlying information flows.

Although Bagrie noted that “the consensus seems to be that the review is about monetary policy”, it has surely been clear for some time that the review could not have been that narrow in scope?  After all, Steven Joyce told us in April that he asked the reviewer to look at whether the Reserve Bank should continue to be responsible for its own legislation –  an issue that is almost entirely about the Bank’s regulatory responsibilities.  And the terms of engagement document did note explicitly that

The Treasury is contracting Iain Rennie to provide a report assessing governance and decision-making at the Reserve Bank.

Nothing there suggesting monetary policy only.  And, in any case, no reviewer could really do a serious job looking only at monetary policy, given that it occurs within an institution, and both functional and (whole of) institutional governance would be likely to be affected by any decisions regarding monetary policy.  And Treasury has been known to be unhappy about the governance of the financial regulatory functions –  including the Bank’s responsibility for its own legislation –  and Rennie was contracted by The Treasury.

On which note, Rutherford includes this

Top officials within the Reserve Bank are said to believe Rennie’s report is something of a power grab by Treasury.

Michael Reddell, the former special advisor to the Reserve Bank, said even the details about the report already released , around which organisation was responsible for the central bank’s governing legislation, amounted to a power play.

Far be from me to agree with the Bank on this.  If I said there was a “power play” involved, it was simply to note that the Treasury has long been uncomfortable about governance, accountability and information flows around the financial regulation powers of the Reserve Bank.  I happen to agree with them   There is too much power vested in one individual, and in one agency.  Those powers should be trimmed, and stronger accountability established.  The Treasury should probably be made responsible as the primary advisers on the various pieces of legislation the Bank operates under.

In a post a couple of weeks ago, I referred to the Bagrie thesis, the Rennie review, and Reserve Bank reform prospects more generally, noting

On the National Party side, you’ll recall that the Minister of Finance had Treasury hire former State Services Commissioner (and former Treasury deputy secretary) Iain Rennie to provide some analysis and advice on possible changes to the governance of the Reserve Bank.  Having had drafts reviewed by various experts, the report was completed months ago, but hasn’t yet seen the light of day.  Treasury has been blocking the release of even drafts of the report, or comments on the draft by reviewers, and nothing is heard from the Minister of Finance.    Presumably Rennie didn’t conclude that everything was just fine and no changes were required.  Had he done so, there would have been no reason not to publish, and it might even have been a small piece of useful ammunition against the sorts of reforms opposition parties are campaigning on.

The interesting question is (a) how far has Rennie gone in his recommendations, and (b) whether a re-elected National government (perhaps reliant on New Zealand First –  long critical of the Reserve Bank) would implement them?   I heard the other day a hypothesis that the report isn’t being released because it calls for reform so radical that the Reserve Bank would be split in two (a monetary policy and macro agency, like the Reserve Bank of Australia, and a prudential regulatory agency (like APRA).   There are pros and cons to such a structural split, but I haven’t for a long time heard anyone here seriously propose it as an option (and particularly not since the UK government brought all those functions back under one roof).    Time will tell, but I would hope Rennie would recommend things like (ideas previously proposed here, and practices in the UK):

• moving (in law) to committee-based decisionmaking,
• having external members appointed directly by the Minister,
• separate committees for monetary policy and the prudential regulatory functions,
• a mandated greater degree of transparency, and
• (something Joyce asked for advice on) making Treasury primarily responsible for the legislation under which the Reserve Bank operates.

As I say, time will tell.  But if National is back in office, they will presumably want to move quite quickly on appointing a permanent Governor (the Board, which is driving the process, meets again later this week), and whoever takes the role would presumably want to know what legislative arrangements they would be operating under.

It is well past time for the Rennie report, and associated documents to be released.  Doing so can’t have suited the current government, but this is an official document, paid for with taxpayers’ money.   And there can’t really be any credible grounds under the Official Information Act for withholding a months’-old consultants report to The Treasury on matters of organisation design.  In fact, in the current hiatus –  between Governors –  I would argue that there is a significant public interest in the release of the report now.