The not-so 14 layers of management at Health NZ
Saturday, 27 July 2024
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made much of a claimed 14 layers of management at Health NZ this week, as he criticised the organisation for a monthly $130 million overspend.
But there’s a problem: the Government can’t prove there are 14 layers of management.
Luxon made the claim on Monday, when announcing the appointment of Lester Levy as commissioner to Health NZ as the Government took greater control of the healthcare provider to eliminate a claimed $1.4b annual overspend.
“Between the CEO and the senior leaders at the top and patients, there can be up to 14 layers of management,” Luxon said, three times over.
Health Minister Shane Reti also described a “mind boggling” organisational chart.
“I could not name the different layers of way finders, pathfinders, boundary spanners ‒Lord knows what else ‒ from A to B. I could not name them for you,” he said.
But a breakdown of the supposed 14 layers of management has failed to prove the claim.
Asked for an organisational chart, Reti’s office took two days to produce a list of the supposed 14 layers of management.
It includes the “patient”, who could not be classed as managers at Health NZ, as well as the board chairperson and chief executive.
Between the patient and the chief executive, there are 11 job titles, and not all appear to be managers. It includes the “team member”, feasibly a nurse or doctor, and the chief executive’s chief of staff.
“It sounded off when I heard it, and seeing this chart makes me realise it’s false,” said Ayesha Verrall, Labour Party health spokesperson.
“Two layers are incorrect. The chief of staff is not the second layer of management, and the patient isn’t on the organisational chart.
“When I fly in a plane, I’m not appearing on the organisational chart of Air New Zealand. This is ridiculous.”
Verrall said she had worked in hospitals where team leaders had seen patients and while many of the middle layers of management might exist, in many instances they would not.
“The whole performance was an example of Government spin … They're alleging that there is too much middle management to justify cuts,” she said.
Reti’s office would not confirm which particular team this supposed 14-layered list of managers representative, due to “privacy considerations”, however it said the structure “would be replicated across different parts of the organisation”.
It was not clear where Luxon produced the 14 layers of management claim from.
Reti, standing next to the prime minister at the press conference, did not cite the figure himself. But he did say the Government would be cutting this down to six layers of management.
Levy, in a interview with RNZ on Thursday, said he was informed a small hospital might be seven management layers between a nurse and a chief executive, and for a larger hospital it could be 10 or 12.
But not, it appears, 14.
The claimed ‘14 layers’ of Health NZ managers
1 - Chair and Board
2 - Chief Executive
3 - Chief of Staff
4 - National Director Hospital and Specialist Services
5 - Regional Director Hospital and Specialist Services
6 - Group Director Operations
7 - General Manager
8 - Service Manager
9 - Manager
10 - Assistant Manager
11 - Team Leader
12 - Team Supervisor
13 - Team Member
14 - Patient