Statistics New Zealand money troubles led to talk of up to 200 job losses
Tuesday, 9 July 2019
Statistics NZ raised a worst case scenario of cutting up to 200 staff and dropping the collection of key economic data if it did not get more money.
Last month Stats NZ (SNZ) axed four surveys, most controversially ditching the monthly commercial accommodation monitor which drew strong objections from the tourism industry.
But pre-Budget briefing papers prepared for Statistics Minister James Shaw indicated much heavier cuts were contemplated, including the possibility of reducing staff numbers by 100 to 200 over the next two years.
Documents released under the Official Information Act outlined how SNZ also considered stopping a further six surveys that gather key statistics on the value of tourism, regional gross domestic product, business operations, research and development, the cruise industry, and property sales to overseas buyers.
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SNZ said most of those surveys were important economic indicators or fed into other high priority Government data.
Without land property transfer statistics, there would be no indication of the rate at which overseas people were buying property here and it would remove the possibility of developing a register of overseas ownership in New Zealand.
SNZ acting general manager of products, services, and insight Jason Attewell said all six surveys would continue, and the dire picture painted in the briefing papers was very much a worst case scenario of what might have happened.
SNZ had sought an additional $20m in this year's Budget, but received an extra $16m and had to prioritise accordingly.
'We were trying to articulate what the implications were of that fall, that there would be something that had to give.
'As we went through a priority list we realised some of those were really important statistics in their own right and we want them to continue.'
'However, this was not just about cost, but also about which statistics are the highest priority.'
Attewell said of the surveys being dropped, those looking at energy use, the screen industry and internet service providers could be revived in a new form if funding was available in the next Budget.
Staff numbers had been reduced by natural attrition to reflect the end of that work.
A 'data hui' was planned to discuss ways of replacing the old commercial accommodation monitor with a new measure that took into account the growth or peer-to-peer accommodation such as Airbnb.
The briefing papers said factors contributing to SNZ's financial woes included rising wages and IT costs, increased rents with a move to a new building following earthquake damage to Stats House in Wellington, and problems with the 2018 census.
Attewell said that as of July 1 they were taking a new approach to ensure SNZ charges to other Government departments reflected the full cost of gathering data.
'Some of these agreements for the price have been around a long time and haven't gone up by much.'
In the case of the commercial accommodation monitor, SNZ had charged MBIE $520,000 annually for collecting monthly guest nights in hotels, motels, backpackers and holiday parks, and wanted to raise the price to $2.2m.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa Chris Roberts said it was vital that the SNZ continued measure the value of the tourism sector and TIA would push hard to ensure it did so.
He said the OIA documents made depressing reading and confirmed the major funding pressures StatsNZ was under as demands from Government for new research grew at the same time that the agency's core funding dropped.
'Sensible government and business decisions cannot be made in the absence of good data and insight.'