What Does a Long-Term Investment Plan Actually Need?

July 13, 2026

What Does a Long-Term Investment Plan Actually Need? A Practical Guide for New Zealand Agencies

Every New Zealand government agency will soon need a credible long-term investment plan. Te Waihanga's new guidance and the forthcoming asset management assurance function set the standard agencies will be measured against. Here's what a credible plan actually contains, and where most agencies currently fall short.

A Compliant Plan and a Credible Plan Are Not the Same Thing.

The Government’s commitment to legislate long-term investment planning obligations for departments and Crown Entities in 2027 has moved the conversation on. Agencies now know the direction is set and the timeline is real. The question has shifted from whether to act to what, specifically, is required.

But that second question is harder than it looks. “Long-term investment plan” is a phrase that can mean almost anything, and the gap between a document that satisfies a reporting obligation and one that actually improves investment decisions is significant. This article sets out what a credible long-term investment plan requires, where most agencies currently fall short, and how to build toward the standard the legislation will demand.

Why the Existing System Has Not Been Enough

The Investment Management System (IMS), overseen by the Treasury, already requires central government agencies to develop long-term investment intentions. This is not a new idea. What Te Waihanga’s National Infrastructure Plan makes clear is that the current approach is disjointed.

The Commission reviewed long-term investment plans across health, defence, police, corrections, and education. Collectively, these plans signal a requirement for significantly more than $5 billion of capital spending each year, against a 2026 Budget Policy Statement that indicated $3.5 billion available annually for four years. The chronic mismatch between what agencies say they need and what the Budget can provide is a direct consequence of planning processes that are not grounded in rigorous, verified asset data.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop was explicit about this in the May 2025 Beehive release on the asset management work programme: a number of government agencies have reported non-compliance with Cabinet expectations on depreciation funding, asset management plans, and asset registers. This is not a fringe problem. It is the norm across a material portion of the public sector.

The forthcoming amendments to the Public Finance Act and the Crown Entities Act are designed to change this by creating legal obligations where previously there were only expectations. The difference matters in practice: an expectation you can fall short of without consequence is different from a legislative requirement you must meet.

What a Credible Long-Term Investment Plan Actually Contains

Te Waihanga released its Asset Management and Investment Planning Guidance in December 2025 – guidance developed in collaboration with agencies including the Department of Corrections, Health New Zealand, Kainga Ora, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, the New Zealand Defence Force, New Zealand Police, and NZTA Waka Kotahi. It provides the most detailed articulation yet of what good practice looks like for central government, and it draws directly on the ISO 55000 international standard for asset management.

The guidance introduces the term “Asset Management and Investment Plan” (AMIP) as the umbrella concept – encompassing policy, objectives, strategy, and plan together, rather than treating them as separate documents that rarely speak to each other. That integrated framing is itself significant: it signals that asset management is not a technical function sitting below the planning process, but a precondition for it.

At a practical level, a credible AMIP requires several components that many agencies currently cannot produce. Understanding what those components are, and what makes them defensible rather than notional, is the starting point for any agency that wants to be ahead of the legislation rather than scrambling to meet it.

A current, structured asset register with condition data.
Not a spreadsheet last updated three years ago. Not a list of assets without condition ratings. A live, structured register that captures what the agency owns, where it is, what condition it is in, and what it cost to acquire. Condition data is what separates a register from an inventory: without it, you cannot project when an asset will need renewal, which makes lifecycle planning impossible.

A documented maintenance history.
Decisions about whether to maintain, renew, or replace an asset cannot be made well without a record of what has already been spent on it and what interventions have been made. Maintenance history is also what allows an agency to demonstrate, under audit, that its asset management approach has been applied consistently over time.

A lifecycle model that projects renewal needs and costs.
This is where most agencies are furthest behind. A lifecycle model takes the asset register and condition data, applies assumptions about useful life and deterioration rates, and produces a forward view of when assets will require intervention and at what cost. Te Waihanga’s plan notes that replacing and rebuilding existing infrastructure will require up to 60 cents in every dollar of capital spending over the next 30 years. That figure is a system-level estimate. Agencies need their own version of it, specific to their portfolio.

A prioritisation methodology linked to risk and service outcomes.
An investment plan that lists everything an agency wants to spend money on, without explaining how competing demands will be prioritised, is not a plan – it is a wish list. The methodology for ranking investments should be explicit, defensible, and connected to the agency’s service obligations and risk tolerance.

Integration with funding and Budget processes.
A plan that exists in isolation from the Budget process will not improve investment decisions. The Commission’s guidance is direct on this: investment plans need to be linked to funding and pricing decisions and consider different demand and funding scenarios. A credible AMIP is one that can be used in a Budget conversation, not one that sits in a different part of the organisation from the people who prepare one.

The Leadership Question

The IPWEA’s analysis of Te Waihanga’s guidance, published in February 2026, was candid about what will determine whether the guidance translates into practice: “guidance alone will not fix leaky hospitals, ageing water networks, or failing transport corridors.” The critical variable is whether leaders are prepared to change behaviour, incentives, and expectations across the system.

This is consistent with what the IPWEA has argued more broadly: asset management is not a technical support function that can be delegated downward. It is a leadership responsibility that requires executive visibility of asset condition and risk, and governance structures that connect long-term asset stewardship to financial decision-making.

The Chief Executive Annual Attestation process, which the Treasury administers under Cabinet Office circular CO (23) 9, already makes this explicit. Chief executives are required to attest personally to their agency’s compliance with investment and asset management expectations. The 2027 legislation will elevate that accountability further, creating a public reporting obligation that sits alongside the existing internal attestation process.

What this means, practically, is that the time to assign ownership of AMIP development is now. If your agency’s chief executive does not yet have a clear view of what is in your asset register, what condition your portfolio is in, and what the renewal liability looks like over the next decade, that is a gap worth closing before the legislation sets a public deadline for it.

The Capital-Intensity Problem

Not all agencies face the same challenge. The forthcoming legislative obligations are likely to apply initially to capital-intensive agencies – those with the largest asset portfolios and the most significant renewal liabilities. But the boundary of what counts as “capital-intensive” is not yet defined in legislation, and agencies that assume they fall below the threshold are making a bet that may not pay off.

That direction has already moved from intention to mechanism. On 6 May 2026, Cabinet agreed to a package of changes to the wider infrastructure investment assurance system. Among them, Te Waihanga confirmed a dedicated assurance function will be established specifically for asset management and investment planning at capital-intensive agencies, with Te Waihanga coordinating delivery and the Treasury leading policy. The changes to the wider assurance system, including the consolidation of the Infrastructure Priorities Programme into a new assurance product, take effect from 1 November 2026. A timeline for the asset management function itself is still being finalised, but the direction and the agencies in scope are no longer a matter of speculation.

Te Waihanga’s guidance is explicit that it is designed for central government agencies but is also relevant to local authorities and other public asset owners. The investment planning obligations being legislated are the leading edge of a broader shift in expectations across the public sector.

The more immediate risk for capital-intensive agencies is the misalignment that the Commission has documented. Agencies are signalling investment needs to the Budget process that exceed what the Budget can fund. That mismatch will not be resolved by producing better plans alone – but it will be made worse if agencies cannot produce credible plans at all. An agency that cannot quantify its renewal liability cannot make a compelling case for capital allocation. An agency with a current asset register, a lifecycle model, and a prioritised investment programme can.

Where OmTrak Fits Into This

WebFM has been working with New Zealand government agencies for over 15 years, and the pattern we see across those engagements is consistent with what Te Waihanga has now documented at a system level. The agencies that make the best investment decisions are not the ones with the largest budgets – they are the ones that know what they own, what condition it is in, and what it will cost to sustain.

OmTrak is built around the same whole-of-life framework that the ISO 55000 standard and Te Waihanga’s AMIP guidance both reflect. The platform connects asset information, maintenance planning, compliance management, and lifecycle forecasting in a way that gives agencies the structured data they need to build credible investment plans – not as a one-off exercise, but as an ongoing organisational capability.

WebFM’s New Zealand work with the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Department of Corrections, Crown Infrastructure Delivery, and the Ministry of Education has given us detailed practical understanding of what government agencies face when they try to close the gap between the data they have and the data they need. In most cases, the gap is real but bridgeable – and the agencies that start bridging it now will be in a fundamentally stronger position when the legislation requires them to demonstrate what they have built.

What to Do Before the Legislation Arrives

The 2027 legislation is not yet in its final form, but the direction it will take is clear enough to act on now. Waiting for final drafting before starting work means starting from scratch under deadline pressure. The agencies that will meet the legislative requirement from a position of strength are those building asset management capability while there is still time to do it properly.

A practical starting point is to assess where your agency currently sits against the components of a credible AMIP. This does not require a formal programme. It requires honest answers to a short set of questions:

Do we have a current, structured asset register with condition data, or do we have an outdated list without it?
Can we produce a lifecycle model projecting renewal costs over the next 10 to 30 years?
Do we have a documented, defensible methodology for prioritising competing investment demands?
Is our asset management planning integrated with our Budget submissions and CFO reporting, or does it sit separately?
Does our chief executive have clear visibility of our asset condition and renewal liability?

If several of those answers are uncomfortable, that is the starting point for a conversation. The 2027 deadline is real. The agencies that treat the period between now and then as preparation time will be better positioned than those that wait for the final requirements to land before they act.

If your organisation is working through what a credible long-term investment plan requires, we would welcome the opportunity to show you how OmTrak supports that work in practice. Request a demonstration with our New Zealand team – specific to your agency’s context and asset portfolio.

WebFM has supported government agencies and asset owners across New Zealand and Australia for over 15 years. To speak with the New Zealand team, visit our contact page.

References and further reading

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