A smaller public sector
The Herald reports:
State Services Minister Tony Ryall yesterday gave an update on the Government’s “cap of core government administration”.
The number of full-time jobs in core administrative roles fell by 1480 or 3.8 per cent last year to 37,379.
At the same time, said Mr Ryall, 540 full-time equivalent jobs had been added in “key frontline agencies outside the cap”, including Child, Youth and Family, Work and Income, and Community Probation.
“National campaigned to cap the size of the core bureaucracy and we’ve done that. This allows us to free up resources for improving frontline services,” Mr Ryall said.
After a 50% increase in the size of the public service under Labour, this is a great achievement.
It is so popular than even Phil Goff was trying to have it both ways. On TV last night he was claiming that Labour would also have capped public sector numbers – just not reduced them. Yeah, Right.
“We would have looked at the quality and the need for the staff, it would have been more about capping and not cutting,” says Labour leader Phil Goff.
I wonder what Grant Robertson thought of his leader’s endorsement of National’s policy of capping the number of staff. Maybe Grant could clarify what Labour’s policy now is? I am sure the PSA have been on the phone to him.
At the last election National campaigned on capping core public service jobs, a policy PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott said was “a farce”.
So is Brenda saying Phil Goff is supporting a farce?
“The Government has been cutting, not capping, jobs at a time when unemployment rose to a 10-year high.”
And the Government is borrowing $240 million a week. Private sector jobs create income for the Government, while public sector ones soak up that money. The fewer jobs we have in the private sector, the fewer we can afford in the public sector. This is why economic growth is rather important.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Good to see they’re doing something right. That said, ‘Child, Youth, and Family’ and ‘Work and Income’ being ‘key frontline agencies outside the cap’ sounds like a Labour dream to me. It’s amazing how people use to grow up without these sorts of institutions and anarchy did not reign. So when National starts reforming the actual make-up of the public service, rather than simply reducing numbers, I’ll be more impressed. It’s a very good start, but we still have wasteful institutions which could be abolished, let alone ‘reduced’.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:26 am
Ryall was blunt about what a cap was (and wasn’t) on NatRad yesterday afternoon. He said (something like) it was stupid to think a cap is a number that has to be maintain, it was an upper limit and there was nothing to prevent going under that.
He also said it was stupid to think that if you remove a number of unneeded positions you had to replace that number with other unneeded jobs “to maintain a cap”.
Duncan Garner also looked stupid in his piece on this last night, trying to make a drama out of something that is common sense.
Removing unnecessary fat and adding muscle where it matters is hard to argue against.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:26 am
What is interesting is, the loss of jobs in the Health Department is combined with the announcement that the Chief Executive of the Department is leaving. I suspect there was a massive blow out in staff numbers in that Department and a very tardy response from the Chief Executive to reigning all that in. We have a similar response from Radio New Zealand and I suspect there will be changes there too, and so on. When you let costs and staff numbers blow out it becomes difficult to admit that is somehow a mistake, so you defend that position. BUT that exposes you even further to criticism especially if the evidence of waste is clear. So the CE goes and we will see more of that. When people in the private sector are losing their jobs I am afraid a few bureaucrats in Wellington losing theirs is not going to do the Government any harm in the polls. This is further reinforced by Wellington becoming a firm Labour town so the Government has little to lose there politically.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:41 am
How many jobs does it equal $250 million a week.
maybe every public servant should pro-rata be docked the relevant amount to stop the borrowing.
Surely the bean counters at treasury can work that out?
pro-rata from the top down of course?
March 18th, 2010 at 8:05 am
It’s a bit difficult to reason the borrowing if so, and spending at the same time. I am beginning to feel sympathetic towards this government for I think the Axeman has no idea where’s heading…
March 18th, 2010 at 8:30 am
Given that some government departments grew by 400% under Hullen with no discernable improvement in services they can hardly be suprised.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:06 am
I am sorry for the people who have list their jobs.
A few things to note:
a) the govt. campaigned on reigning in the public service,
b) looks like health service administrator numbers were horrendously boated
c) this is another Wellington beltway issue that the rest of the country places somewhere alongside ‘John Banks rescues cat from tree’ in importance – thats nice, sounds like the right thing to do.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:10 am
lost
March 18th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Cutting a few public sector jobs means bugger all, while I applaud the actions of the government in getting rid of these people they really need to do a hell of a lot more to make a real difference.
If the Nat’s are deadly serious they should start abolishing things like the Family commission, the race relations conciliator, Woman’s affairs etc…
March 18th, 2010 at 9:18 am
John Banks rescued a cat from a tree????? Why has this not been covered by the MSM?
I see that meanwhile John cmapbell has managed to flog the kids on planes story for another 24hrs. Seriously doesn’t he have a job?
Its difficult to tell parody from reality any more.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Sadly, it has, Murray:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3435085/Mayor-coy-on-cat-rescue
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/banks-helps-rescue-cat-stuck-up-tree-3405095
March 18th, 2010 at 9:29 am
oh.my.fucking.god
A journalist, a journalist, my nation for a real journalist!
March 18th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Again there is a lot of lies, damned lies and statistics in this so-called reduction in public sector employment. A good chunk is apprarently fixed term employees engaged by IRD to implement kiwisaver; more reflects just cancelling vacant positions. Actual firing of people and meaningful downsizing of hte bureaucracay seems to be pretty limited.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:33 am
@ MikeNZ “How many jobs does it equal $250 million a week.”
Approximately 178,285.7 per my calculator – $240m x 52 weeks divided by $70k (my guess of average public sector all in employee cost).
The REAL costs in government are health, education and welfare in all its insidious forms.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:51 am
And treaty settlements that are not honoured.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
“National campaigned to cap the size of the core bureaucracy and we’ve done that. This allows us to free up resources for improving front line services,” Mr Ryall said”
This is also a good time for the government to cut out our corrupt bureaucracy that is systemic in this country.. for not doing the job they are paid to do.. but instead cerate even more bureaucracy to cover their arse.. from their failures to perform. Ryall can then start to streamline down our bureaucrats to be performance based on results and make them accountable for their actions. Instead of the spin and bullshit they cerate and being paid on account of how many staff they have under them sitting on their arse.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
What annoyed me was the stat shown on TV showing that there are still 32 CEO’s in the public service. Of course there are, do they expect an organisation to run without one.
But no mention that there are a few agency amalgamations going on and that will reduce the number of those CEO’s over the next few months.
Further reductions in the public service are needed across the board.
Another thing is that they can probably hire at least two full time front line staff members for every one back room policy-wonk they get rid of.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Look to the past for what the future holds. Railways when it was a sheltered workshop used by Labour to hide unemployment so we could all pretend socialism wasn’t failing had 22,000 employees and we (NZ) had one of the most expensive freight/passenger charges in the world. After it was returned to core responsibilities (trains rather than a device for hiding unemployment) it had 5,000 staff and the freight/passenger costs came down to reasonable levels.
So – thousands and thousands of people left to chop yet.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
What Labour term did that happen in?
March 18th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
“What Labour term did that happen in?”
That would mostly be Muldoon’s time. Labour actually reformed the railways in the 1980s IIRC
March 18th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
“looks like health service administrator numbers were horrendously boated”
“boated”?sounds painful.Getting rammed astern?….oh!
Nasty
March 18th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
[DPF]: “After a 50% increase in the size of the public service under Labour, this [reduction of 3.8%] is a great achievement.”
3.8% << 50%. It's a small step in the direction National wanted to go, hardly a great achievement. Cheerleader.
[DPF]: "I wonder what Grant Robertson thought of his leader’s endorsement of National’s policy… So is Brenda saying Phil Goff is supporting a farce?"
I see what you did there. A few barbed comments on Kiwiblog and you might be able to inflame a major coup/split in Labour. Yeah…
But FWIW, yes this leftie agrees Phil Goff comment "we would have too" was just stupid…
March 18th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
A good cleanout/reorganisation is not neccessarily a bad thing, but without any reference to productivity/effectiveness/policy measures raw figures are a bit meaningless. Its interesting that the departments of Key, English and Joyce are increasing in size- so its hardly surprising that people are a bit underwhelmed.
If you think this govt is not going to borrow to spend it is worth asking where will the money for tax cuts (despite negative real GDP growth) and roads (despite increasing fuel costs) come from? I’m guessing they won’t be paid by cutting public service jobs.
I’m happy that we want to borrow less so we don’t end up like Greece- but when do cut, lets put it all on the table.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Ryall continues to impress with the way he handles his portfolios. Maybe he should take over the Labour portfolio the present Minister doesn’t believe that youth unemployment would drop if youth rates were introduced.
March 18th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Would DPF care to spin why Finance has grown since Double Dipton took over ?
March 18th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Did we have a finance ministry under Labour or was it just an autocracy run by Cullen at the behest of H2 for H1?
That may explain.
March 18th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
James – ouch!
March 19th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
I’m a little confused, perhaps someone can clarify for me:
Mr Ryall said that there was rampant growth in the public sector and that it grew at a rate of 1800 jobs a year during the nine years that Labour were in power. (P2, Dom Post 18 March). So 1800 * 9 = 16,200. If the public sector has lost 1400 jobs and is now 37,379, then it used to be 38,859. 38859 – 16200 = 22659. Does that mean the public sector was 22659? 16200 is 71.5% of that figure, much higher than 50% stated above. Did it really grow by that much since 1999?
I also am tempted to speculate what the financial impact is likely to be of downsizing. Everyone is mindlful that the Govt is borrowing approx $250 million every week to keep the country running. If each job that has been shed saves the taxpayer $100,000 p.a., the reduction would contribute a grand $2.8 million in weekly savings, so we are still a longway short ($247.2 million). In fact, if we stopped paying the remaining entire public service (37,379), using the same rough average of $100k p.a., per person, we would still be short of avoiding the need to borrow so heavily; i.e. we might save a further $72 million, but would still need to borrow $175 million, every week.
My point is that while it’s good to find some efficiencies, and it might appease the general public who think public servants are expendable scum, the bigger problem remains that we need to borrow for other things, presumably for pensions, working for families and core services that everyone enjoys / needs. The root of the problem isn’t the cost of the public service.