Go Treasury
September 29th, 2009 at 10:00 am by David FarrarI want to see more stories like this:
The Treasury is looking at plans to cut the Government’s administrative staff and costs by almost one third with a centralisation of back office services.
Recruiting, IT, finance and “a range of corporate services” in the public sector in offices nationwide are being earmarked for consolidation to save 30 per cent of costs and increase productivity.
We have in the public sector around 250 IT systems, 250 HR systems, 250 accounting systems etc etc. I am sure there are very significant gains to be made out there.
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September 29th, 2009 at 10:02 am
As long as all the savings don’t get frittered away on consultants, which always bloody happens. “Consultants” make an absolute killing of the government, it is a joke.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 10:12 am
When will Treasury declare the start of quango hunting season?
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I used to work for an Aussie state government which operated a common IT infrastructure across all agencies. One network. One e-mail system. One set of domain services. One payroll application. One set of financial applications. Etc. And a single small unit which worked on strategy and contract management, since we outsourced all of it. Agency IT groups concentrated on their own agency-specific business applications.
The efficiencies were obvious. But were also able to provide uniformly high quality shared services… If you have dozens (or hundreds) of, say, e-mail implementations, then some of those will be under-resourced, run by people who have no talent for the products involved, and will just be bad implementations. But if you only run one e-mail system, your best e-mail people can run it, and they can spend their time operating it well, rather than reinventing the wheel.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 10:19 am
So this means when ACC get a Surgeon’s Report at Nth Harbour, a copy is verified in Hamilton and posted to the “Client” from Balclutha; the system could be symplified?
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 10:41 am
This is just about full circle. The pre-Rogernomics public service was like this with the State Services Commission running various common services such a unified HR structure, central payroll (CPS / PIPS), central accommodation provider (GOAB) and central IT. Also approvals for staffing, buying office machines (including pocket calculators) and various things had to be sought from SSC. Internal affairs looked after cleaning and inter departmental delivery services, and Public service Garage (run by Post Office) provided an internal car hire service as well as running the Ministerial fleet.
All this was dismantled under Rogernomics, and now things are swinging back in that direction.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Good stuff. Tho I agree with Will. Treasury has all the ‘financial dirt’ on state-sector waste, so while it’s great to see it looking to get it’s own house in order, where are its teeth?
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Yes, this is all good. But I’d rather see more Treasury reports like this (‘Treasury unimpressed by emission scheme logic’).
The Emissions Trading Scheme will cost far more than we can ever save by firing a few public servants. (Not that that too is not a laudable goal. Yes, please!) But how about some perspective?
The ETS is based on shonky and deliberately deceptive science. It is an entire edifice based on the results of a handful of arctic trees.
There is nothing holding it up (a few “Team Gore”-fuelled celebrities and politicians don’t count, and cannot think for themselves).
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Great another report, when on earth is anything actually going to get done.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 11:15 am
No, this can’t be right. If there were any savings to be made in the public service, I’m sure the last Labour Government would have found it. This is just another example of the NACTs taking money off the poor to give to their rich mates.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Just reduce the 250 organisations to, say, 10, that would be a start (and by reduce I mean eliminate and not transfer their “responsibilities” to another department).
THEN worry about systems integration.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 11:45 am
A sideline comment about how this is reported.
The headline screams “Public sector staff at risk as services slashed” while the article later notes the PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff as saying ‘they are not opposed the centralisation of back office functions’. Pfffft. More alarmist stuff from the MSM.
I would have used the headline “Taxpayers to benefit from Treasury’s operational efficiencies”
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 11:51 am
This is an absolutely dreadful idea the result of which will see the blogosphere inundated with thousands of unemployed lefty idiots like village and toady and philu. Us righteous fellows and our sensible contributions will be totally lost under a mountain of newspeak/leftobabble. I urge the treasury to think again.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
peterwn – Hopefully the difference would be that the costs of the shared services were, this time, charged back to the originating frontline unit so they have an incentive to use the service efficiently and over-users can be identified to figure out why. I’m sure these common services in the past did prevent duplication costs but did nothing to stop waste costs.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the “Personnel Departments” actually become accountable !
Sorry “Human Resources” – so full of important people, who only recommend staff appointments to people of their like thinking – look at what has happened under the Clark Government, often corrupted by these “friendly” appointments at senior level so that they can see “their people” in important sycophantic roles under them.
This has happened in the private sector also over many recent years, the agencies contacting people when a vacancy appears and then putting forward only people of their perceived likeness, so that they can retain contact and move them onward and upward, for more money, and of course a percentage agency fees.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I thought this was a link to the following story:
Treasury unimpressed by emission scheme logic
Vote:http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10600162
September 29th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
This is a laudable goal, but I suspect the Payback Period would be quite lengthy. The costs associated with running a project to select a single (for example) HR system, then integrate all 250 current systems into that single system, would be significant. Then, multiply that by the different systems to be consolidated (HR, Finance/GL, Accounting, Procurement, etc.) and you have a consuting firm’s wet dream.
Clearly you would start with the easy stuff like email, but the problem with email is that most providers would want to bundle it with something else, and whatever you choose there would hobble other choices down the track. For example, if you choose MS Outlook for your email, you’re stuck with Windows for your operating system, which means you limit your choices for all other systems.
Camryn, I agree without a charge-back model the result would likely be increased waste, but most organisations are used to internal charge-backs these days.
Oh and johnboy, “leftobabble” ROFLMAO.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
As said above, ditch some departments/commissions/services first. Then worry about system integration.
I worked for the UK subsidiary of a US reinsurance company. A week after the UK company had rolled out Windows 2000, the head man from the US came over to say: “Sorry chaps, we’re closing down the UK business”. No one said much and there was only one question, from someone in IT: “But this can’t be right, we’ve just rolled-out Windows 2000″. He asked the same question again 10 minutes later. Comic tragedy.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I am just waiting for some political ‘freak’ to label this as proof positive of the insidious workings of the ‘New World Order’.
Centralisation of Government by stealth and all that.
This vision of bearded men (and women) heading for the hills ready to do battle.
The tattooed one may soon have some new recruits to play soldiers with.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Camryn – a big problem at the time was that the requirement to use the ‘services’ was often inhibiting when trying to get the job done. This probably caused more ‘waste’ than any wasteful use of the ‘services’ themselves (actually there was probably not much waste since access to the services was tightly controlled).
There was the ‘Public Service Official Circular’ which contained the internal ‘sits vac’, appointments and various notices. One went along the lines of why make a toll call when a letter would suffice comparing a 50 cent toll call with a 4 cent stamp. At that time it cost $5 or so all up to ‘produce’ a letter and two letters would generally be needed to deal with a matter (at that time gross underinvestment in the phone network required operators for toll calls which was expensive and they were regarded as a ‘luxury’ item making them even more expensive and this effectively kept the Post Office in the ‘black’ – that legacy has enabled Telecom to continue gouging on toll calls). Letters often had to be signed two or three levels up the ‘food chain’ from the writer which further mired things especially when the ‘signer’ was excessively picky on grammar and style.
Another quaint feature was ‘appeals’ against appointments. This provision was supposedly to prevent corrupt appointment practices. If unsuccessful applicant A thought that he had ‘more merit’ than successful applicant B, A could appeal to an appeals board (often with a lawyer) and often won. I remember a case where someone who was grossly unpopular with the CEO, other staff at all levels and ‘clients’ winning a job on appeal and then inflicting misery on everyone.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
They’re going to merge _all_ government department IT systems?
Prediction: If they achieve it, it will be five years late, several billion dollars over budget, and the users will see it as a backwards step.
Vote:September 29th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
I say, give Treasury a short-legged Mongolian horse and let them get about the business at hand.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 12:33 am
You can scoff all you like about the idea. There will be empires built and destroyed by change one way or another so you better get over that pretty quickly.
The world has changed while departments are still installing all their own systems. Meanwhile remember significant change to the structure of govt is only a legislatures pen strike away. Companies have got smarter, used technology better and lightened their business footprint by migrating to hosted solutions with published integrable services. Look at the partners link on the Xero website, why would you write and maintain your own versions of this when there a running systems already hosting thousands of users to prove their durability and scalability. Payroll, accounting, job costing/project management, portfolio management, CRM are all available as services.
If business can morph like it has started to do then don’t be surprised if govt dips it’s toe to feel the temperature.
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