Census boss among 29 staff leaving Stats NZ

Tuesday, 12 December 2023

Senior staff have not been spared in Stats NZ’s restructure.

Stats NZ is shedding 29 staff, including some senior executives, in a drive to cut its costs.

The department has disestablished 46 roles, including that held by the deputy chief executive responsible for the census, Simon Mason, who left the organisation at the end of a secondment a few weeks ago, ahead of the bulk of the restructure.

The role held by the deputy chief executive in charge of the department’s data systems, Craig Jones, has also been cut.

Stats NZ is reducing the number of redundancies by creating 17 new roles.

Government statistician and Stats NZ chief executive Mark Sowden said the department had a pressing need to manage its budget in the current financial year and better position itself to be financially sustainable in the future.

The department had cut its expenditure by reducing its office footprint, extending its Christmas close-down period, reducing funding for Christmas functions and limiting travel, but personnel were its biggest cost, Sowden said.

The majority of roles impacted by the restructure were in management, system leadership and corporate services, he said.

“None of the changes will impact on the data products and services we provide.”

Sowden was appointed as Stats NZ’s chief executive in 2020. The department needed to do things differently, he said.

“People want more and new data, and they want it faster.”

Stats NZ chief executive Mark Sowden believes the census will have to change (video first published in July 2023).

He said in July that this year’s census could be the last Stats NZ’s holds in its current form, as it could in future conduct more limited surveys while make more use of data that the public sector already collected.

At the same time, Stats NZ has responded to calls for it provide more frequent information on the drivers behind inflation by last month increasing the number of goods and services whose prices its reports on monthly.

Sowden said the 2023 Census campaign was being wound down and the unit that ran it “integrated back into the wider organisation”.

Public Service Association national secretary Duane Leo said that, after objections from the union, Stats NZ extended the period for staff consultations on the restructure from five days to eight days, but that was still “very compressed”.

“While Stats NZ claims the restructure does not impact its core functions, given the size of savings planned we find this hard to agree with,” he said.

“This whole process has been flawed from the get-go – both the timing this close to the Christmas when everyone is tired and looking forward to a summer break and the unreasonable consultation period.”

Leo said Sowden had acknowledged in a decision document that the process was rushed, poorly implemented and inequitable.

However, a spokesperson for Stats NZ denied that was the case, saying Sowden had only acknowledged that was the union’s view.