Budget documents dump reveals more on funding cuts
Thursday, 12 September 2024
Documents released as part of a big Government dump containing thousands of papers of Budget information reveal officials’ warnings of environmental cuts, and how reluctant Foreign Minister Winston Peters was to make any cut to his ministry.
Government departments made huge savings earlier this year, with documents released on Thursday showing official advice around where the cuts came from.
Only begrudgingly did Peters offer up any ideas for how the Government could claw back funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Peters presented a proposal that would have met the Government’s cost savings target, but did so with “extreme reluctance” and told the prime minister he would be “seriously unwise” to make the cuts.
Most Government departments were asked to cut either 6.5% or 7.5% of their spending. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cut just 1%.
Officials questioned why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be exempt from the savings drive.
Meanwhile, the reduction at the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) came with a warning – saying its cut of $22m to back office functions risked efficiency and effectiveness in ICT, legal, risk and assurance, finance and programme and project management, as well as executive support and procurement.
Another $35m was scaled back from climate change programmes, reducing climate change data, evidence, reporting, and policy work programmes.
“This initiative will likely require trade-offs to be made between the Government's signalled policy priorities for the Ministry for the Environment to enable it to continue to carry out its existing statutory functions,” it noted.
Almost $10m was cut to evidence and data programmes “used to inform policy on climate resilience and environmental science and health in lower value for money areas due to changes in Government priorities”.
It was noted it would “reduce government, community, industry, and business access to data to inform decisions relating to resource use and climate adaptation”.
That included updates to the National Environmental Standard on Drinking Water and Air Quality, groundwater nitrate monitoring and science assurance across multiple policy areas.
Other funding that was cut included $52m for waste minimisation – instead to be funded by Waste Disposal Levy revenue.
That came from uncommitted funding for supporting kerbside standardisation changes through communications campaigns and waste emissions data.
In a letter from Finance Minister Nicola Willis, it said MfE’s workforce had increased 189% since 2017, “while the public service department average increase has been 34%”.
“Further, your agency’s operating expenditure has increased by 87%.
“Your agency’s contractor and consultant operating spend has increased by 110% since 2018, compared to the public service department average of 55%.”
Documents contained within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) show “a reduction in consultancy and external legal advice budgets, reduced cross-agency cyber security programme funding, a move from annual to a bi-annual National Risks Public Survey”.
Other returned spending included the disestablishment of DPMC’s strategy unit and a staff reduction in the National Security Policy Group.
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service reduced its spending by $13m.