Public Service stock-take: How far will the knife cut?

Wednesday, 18 September 2024

The anecdotal mood of the public service may not look so great from the outside.

The public service’s tumultuous 2024 has seen it shrink in size, its funding contracted, with an entirely new direction and targets laid out by the new Government.

So how far did the knife cut?

The tally of total roles cut hovers around 6000 - that includes those confirmed or proposed to go, roles left vacant that were cut and some roles in Crown research institutes.

Last week’s Budget document dump laid out the cuts and money shuffling by all the ministries and agencies expected by the Government to cough up with savings.

Roles ranged from top jobs such as DOC’s chief science adviser, lawyers at Oranga Tamariki, and positions within Customs’ detector dog unit.

Who coughed up the cash?

Last week’s Budget document dump laid out the cuts and money shuffling by all the ministries and agencies expected by the Government to cough up with savings. Willis asked every minister to find baseline savings of either 6.5% or 7.5%.

Some did more than others, the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) finding twice as much as expected, while Ministry of Foreign Affairs cut just 1%.

Many ministries and agencies are still in the middle of restructures.

The Ministry for the Environment hit its savings target of $49.1m on the head, then saved an extra $44.4m. Pages and pages of internal documents about the plans were leaked to The Post, showing over time, it would be reducing its workforce by almost a third.

The Department of the PM and Cabinet only found $3.2m in savings, with a target of $6.3m, while the Ministry of Culture and Heritage was given a $37.5m target, and found $19.6m in its baseline.

What stage are the cuts at?

All of the ministries have put forward their cost savings proposals. In May we learned how much each public service had put forward for the Government’s tax cut kitty.

Now, many ministries and agencies are still in the middle of restructures.Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora’s voluntary redundancy process is progressing, and more recently, at the New Zealand Defence Force, 206 people have applied to take up a voluntary redundancy offer.

Last month, GNS proposed to disestablish 103 roles, with the possibility of creating 37 new positions. This would take the net role deduction to 66 full time positions. It is expected final decisions will be made next week.

The Department of Internal Affairs has also launched a new round of cuts. In August, it proposed that its seven existing branches would be replaced by five new branches, with final decisions expected late October.

DIA has another ‘phase’ next year to further reduce costs - both phases are separate to the Government’s saving programme, it says.

Will the cuts keep coming?

In a word, yes. It’s not over yet.

While the Public Service Association has described the cuts as “a dark day for public services and the dedicated public service workers who do so much to support communities and businesses”, the belt tightening will continue.

Public Service Minister Nicola Willis has said she expects savings and re-prioritisations “will be a business-as-usual activity for all ministers so that we can put the books back in order”.

“We have gone line-by-line through existing Government spending to ensure precious taxpayer dollars are going to their best purpose. That review has freed up $5.86 billion on average per year across more than 240 individual savings and revenue initiatives.”