This page relates to the 2024–27 National Land Transport Programme.
This page provides information to approved organisations and NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA), for its own activities, on how unspent allocation is managed at the end of each financial year.
Further information on how the rules for end-of-year carryovers are applied to specific work categories is provided with the work category information.
Unspent allocation can be carried over within the 3 years of the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) but may be subject to our (NZTA as investor) approval.
As soon as an approved organisation or NZTA (for its own activities) knows that there will be a variation between approved funds in a financial year and required funding, an application for a cash flow adjustment, price level adjustment or cost-scope adjustment must be made via the reviews module in Transport Investment Online (TIO). This will be considered by the NZTA during normal fortnightly processing. Note that these adjustments are subject to the following conditions:
TIO will automatically carry over any unspent allocation every year, provided the remaining funds are greater than $1000 (3-year funding allocations will remain unchanged). Therefore, for anything greater than $1000 it is vital that approved organisations and NZTA (for its own activities) declare the unused allocation for completed projects by making a cost-scope adjustment via the reviews module in TIO.
TIO allows any phase to be marked as completed and automatically creates a review item to declare unclaimed funds as surplus.
For programmes (such as operations, pothole prevention, walking and cycling maintenance, public transport and low-cost, low-risk programmes) and particular activity types (activity management planning improvement and regional land transport planning management), unspent allocation does not carry over at the end of an NLTP and will be surplused. Therefore, approved organisations and NZTA (for its own activities) should monitor spend and, if necessary, surplus funds as soon as they are no longer required, rather than allowing large amounts of funds to remain unclaimed at the end of an NLTP.
Unspent allocation can be carried over to the next NLTP for the following project types which have funding approval for that phase:
Small requests (currently less than $50,000 total cost for approval) to allow final invoices for a completed activity to be paid at the end of a financial year can be submitted in TIO and will be approved with the support of the NZTA investment advisor without the need for further documentation. However, if additional funds are subsequently required, the funding approvals process will apply and the total increase being requested must include the supplementary increase.
Variations to activities, costs and cash flows
If a cost increase greater than $50,000 total cost for approval is requested, it will not be considered as part of the end-of-year carryover process and will be unsubmitted to allow end-of-year processing. Organisations must resubmit these requests in the first review of the following year.
To ensure all claims can be processed and funding assistance rates can be updated to be consistent with NZTA policy, all approved organisations must follow the end-of-year/NLTP instructions published by NZTA.
Further details on the process and timing of these claims are provided on this knowledge base.
Claiming via Transport Investment Online – processes and rules
Once NZTA financial systems close for year end, TIO will be temporarily unavailable for submitting funding requests or claims. However, requests for new or increased funding can proceed off-line and approved organisations should contact their NZTA investment advisor for guidance.
