Some state sector reform
May 31st, 2011 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarI hear from my spies that restructuring has even hit Parliament, and that the Parliamentary Service General Manager has dis-established all the second level Group Manager roles which report to him. This affects some very long-serving staff, and it will be interesting to see what the new second level roles are, and who gets them.
Meanwhile the Government looks set for other state sector reforms:
The Government is proposing changes that will reduce the number of government agencies as it seeks better value for money, less duplication and improved co-ordination across the state sector, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English and State Services Minister Tony Ryall announced today.
The proposals include disestablishing five crown entities and three tribunals, merging two government agencies, establishing shared corporate services across the government’s three central agencies and consolidating the services of a number of others.
The details are:
- Set up an arms-length health promotion agency to take over the relevant functions of the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC), the Health Sponsorship Council (HSC) and the Ministry of Health.
- Disestablish the Crown Health Financing Agency and transfer its district health board lending function to either the Ministry of Health or to the Debt Management Office
- bring forward the date the Mental Health Commission is due to cease functioning (currently 31 August 2015).
- Transfer the functions of the Charities Commission to the Department of Internal Affairs, while ensuring that registration decisions remain separate from Ministers.
- Disestablish three tribunals – the Health Act Boards of Appeal; the Maritime Appeal Authority; and the Land Valuation Tribunals – and transfer their functions to the District Court
- Consolidate audiovisual archiving. Encourage the New Zealand Film Archive, Radio New Zealand, and Television New Zealand to consolidate material into the Film Archive.
- Work with the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Press Council and the Office of Film and Literature Classification to look at opportunities for greater collaboration.
- Merge the Education Review Office and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority into a single education quality assurance agency.
- In addition, as part of their leadership role, the three central agencies, the State Services Commission, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Treasury are consulting with staff on a proposal to establish a shared services centre to integrate their back office functions.
That all looks worthwhile. Of course personally I would be rather more radical. I blogged in April how you could amalgamate agencies into 13 super-departments, which also would mean you could have a Cabinet of 12
Tags: state sector
May 31st, 2011 at 12:13 pm
About time. But there’s room for more significant changes. Why not do all the surgery while the patient is being treated?
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 12:15 pm
On the face of it and without delving too deeply at this stage, it all looks very sensible to me. I have a particular interest in the amalgamation of NZQA & the Education Review Office, I will watch very closely at how this “new” office works at picking up the game upon merging, and actually push toward the “smarting up” of education, rather than the “dumbing down” we have been subjected to over a number of years, particularly in the field of Adult Ed, and the trades ITO’s.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 12:30 pm
All those poor redundant civil servants and consultants.
How will they cope?
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Any prospect that the Ministry of Bribery, oops, Horseracing, will disappear?
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 12:37 pm
@MT_Tinman – I hope they find (or better create) jobs that are productive for the overall economy. The good ones will, the useless ones will need to step up, or plan for a lifestyle change.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Why the change? Will it save any money? No, it isn’t about saving money says Key. And there will be upfront cost.
And really, is there NOTHING that we can abolish? Is every single thing the state does absolutely necessary?
But we’re only borrowing $380 million a week or so. And I suppose this is the direction the National Party voters want: shuffle the chairs. Borrow more. Hope.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Change the record berend.
In fact, why don’t you put up a picture of Key on your wall and then you can put pins in it?
Oh, you’ve done that already?
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:00 pm
It’s hardly state sector reform if they’re talking about privately-funded private sector organisations.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:03 pm
There is room for more consolidation as you have identified. But the sticking point is your Cabinet of 12. That is too small politically as you should know. So we need all these micro agencies to give jobs to Ministers, the more the better so that the PM can keep political control over his party and parliament.
[DPF: You can have Associate Ministers for that. But only need 12 full Ministers, and Cabinet Meetings more useful if a smaller number]
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Directionally correct but fiddling around the edges. Where is the zero-base analysis?
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:30 pm
A step in the right direction, but why not target the big ones, Justice, Corrections, etc… lots of savings to be had.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Ahhhhh.. when I read the article in the newspaper I straight away went out into the back yard. Opened a 15 year old barrel of wine I had been saving for my daughter’s wedding and sacrificed two of my prized goats. One to John Key, and one to the National party.
Vote:Finlay the battle with the bureaucratic Hydra has begun by lopping off some of the smaller heads.
Only by perusing this path of will NZ avoid Kruschev style growth of the government sector that paralyses the whole country with time.
May 31st, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Nothing about deregulating the land and housing markets so that land and housing is affordable for ordinary people.
Think on this!
The luxury cruiser “Oasis of the Seas” cost 1.24 billion US dollars to build and houses 6,300 happy cruisers.
That is about $200,000 per happy cruiser.
NZ is building three new prisons at a cost of NZ$600,000,000 to house 1,400 unhappy inmates.
That is $430,000 per unhappy inmate.
It would be cheaper to build a luxury cruise liner and send them out into the open ocean.
Thank goodness we don’t have “sea use planners” otherwise everything at sea would be as expensive as everything on land.
Whoops!. Too late. The planning industry will never let a chance go by.
See Gary Taylor’s plans for Sea Use planning in this morning’s Herald. Go to:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10729054
Another grand plan, another bundle of decimated enterprises.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Owen McShane
Love that idea. It can later be turned into a movie staring Vin Diesel or a documentary. World’s Toughest Cruise Liners.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Any successful manager who doesn’t continually review efficiency and effective delivery is not a manager but a caretaker and in my youth caretakers were all old buggers who just watched or slept while things happened in their coping with the threat of poverty.
“Thats how we used to do it”, didn’t work then and certainly wont work today.
I wonder if the public service unio,I mean leaches want help with the press release, ohho, no it is in the computor from last time they just have to push send.
ps KK 12 13, any surgery puts the Pt at risk, multiple procedures can multiply that risk, at least it is something, at long last.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 1:51 pm
This is, at best, tinkering around the edges.
Take, for example, the merger of the Maritime Appeal Authority into the District Court. Why do we even have a Maritime Appeal Authority? It appears to be a hangover from the days in which it was thought that the state had a role in heavy-handed regulation of employment on ships.
And on the idea that the State Services Commission, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Treasury are consulting with staff on a proposal to establish a shared services centre to integrate their back office functions, surely it would make more sense to integrate their front office functions?
If the government were serious about reducing government spending, it would:
a) state that the government has no legitimate role in many of the activities currently undertaken by most Crown agencies and thus they can simply be abolished; and
b) state that the government has no legitimate role in providing goods and services to people with sufficient means to finance them themselves, and thus large parts of WFF, and the health and education sectors could be privatised (with large tax cuts being given to people would could now fund their own lifestyles directly, rather than having to pay taxes to be given services of inferior quality to what they could purchase themselves).
But that won’t happen, and so we continue to see waste on a grand scale.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 3:41 pm
One of my favourites is the Tertiary Education Commission. National has cut the number of staff by 65 to get down to below 400. When Cullen was the Minister they were over 450. This work was previously done at the Ministry of Education by around 20 people. Too many bureaucrats ? Nah.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 4:53 pm
I doubt cabinet will shrink much. The real work’s done in cabinet committees so the size of the cabinet does not matter much except political control over the government and a largish body helps with that.
Vote:May 31st, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Disestablish the Ministry of Ethnic affairs..no that’s right , we are turning Chinese.
Vote:June 1st, 2011 at 12:23 am
Owen, it would be cheaper to run a floating prison too as you could employ cheap labour from Asia as the cruise lines do!
I’ve often wondered why we can’t send our longer serving prisoners to a private prison in Asia to save money and make prison less attractive.
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