State Services Minister Chris Hipkins exploring 'regional hub' options for Government departments
Tuesday, 23 June 2020
Wellington’s dominance of the government workforce could soon be under threat, with plans to trial regional “hubs” to counter tightening office space in the capital.
State Services Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed to Stuff the hubs were being considered to combat the increasing problem, with more advice on the proposal expected later this year.
“We are exploring options to pilot regional hubs to help ease any future accommodation pressures in the [Wellington] CBD,” Hipkins said.
His comments follow a Cabinet paper tabled last year which revealed the State Services Commission (SSC) wanted to “reduce the footprint” of government workers in the Wellington and Auckland regions, and move agencies elsewhere when possible.
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The move comes despite recent efforts to reduce the space required per person in Government offices, which the paper said at the time had dropped to 17 square metres but should be as low as 12-16sqm.
It’s understood the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is one agency concerned about not being able to accommodate the number of new recruits it is expecting.
A memo sent to national office staff shortly before New Zealand moved to alert level 1 revealed the ministry was bracing for returning staff, new recruits, an upcoming refurbishment of two of its floors, and “some spaces in other buildings no longer being available”.
“All this means we need to move ahead with our plans to move to flexible workspaces,” the letter said.
“In fact, we need to do this soon.”
But the Public Services Association said flexible workspaces - commonly known as “hot desking” - was often used as a response to space shortages, rather than agencies adding more desks.
Hot desking could often lead to people not having a desk to work at, it said.
“Many of Wellington’s government offices have experimented with hot desking in an attempt to reduce their footprints, save money on rent, and deal with the decreased availability of CBD rental property following the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake,” national secretary Erin Polaczuk said.
Hot desking could be used to justify shifting to a smaller building, and agencies were better off allowing public servants to work from home some of the time instead, Polaczuk said.
The SSC wants all public service departments to have flexible working arrangements in place by the end of the year.
A Cabinet paper tabled in 2018 said a 'step change' was needed to make the management of Government-owned office buildings more streamlined, rather than the existing model of leases being renewed 'on an ad hoc basis, leading to agencies competing with each other for space'.
It also proposed more shared spaces so agencies did not need to renew leases as often, and reducing the overall office footprint of the Government's 62 public service departments.
An earlier framework had already reduced that footprint by more than 200,000sqm - to 1.4 million sqm - and saved more than $200m.
However, more work was needed, including 'reducing the footprint in the Wellington and Auckland regions, and assisting agencies to move functions to regions where appropriate and practical”.
“We will see a more distributed workforce engaged with the local communities, with greater ability for agencies to collaborate with each other in delivering services.”
There are about 50,000 full-time public service employees across New Zealand, with 44 per cent in Wellington and 20 per cent in Auckland.