Political spat while
The chief executive of under-fire merged mega polytechnic Te Pūkenga continues to earn up to $13,000 a week on ‘‘special leave’’ – while Labour and National are at loggerheads – after a highly critical report on the national organisation.
Te Pūkenga confirmed yesterday that the organisation’s chief executive Stephen Town is on paid leave. Its annual report last year indicates Town may be paid $670,000-$679,999 a year, or up to more than $13,000 gross a week. By comparison, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is reportedly earning just more than $470,000 annually.
National Party MP and tertiary education spokesperson Penny Simmonds said yesterday the Government was warned by education leaders that Te Pūkenga was the wrong model for Aotearoa.
A former long-term chief executive at the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT), her comments came after a critical Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) report to Education Minister Chris Hipkins, which warned of a ballooning $110 million annual deficit – $53.5m more than budgeted. This was largely due to lower enrolments and there were concerns the deficit could go even higher. Simmonds said
senior sector chief executives, including herself, told Hipkins the model for Te Pu¯ kenga was wrong and their warnings had ‘‘come to pass’’. ‘‘He has pulled the whole sector down to the lowest common denominator,’’ she said.
The reforms had failed to address the problems of institutions having difficulties while the good performers had lost incentive to do well because they were now part of an all-inclusive entity, she said. Also, about 180 head office jobs had been established. ‘‘He [the minister] has
created this massive bureaucracy at head office,’’ she said. ‘‘This is a whole new layer of non-teaching bureaucracy.’’
There was also talk of up to 600 redundancies in the sector, although this had not been confirmed.
Simmonds said about $200m had been spent setting up Te Pūkenga.
She had no additional information on why Town had gone on special leave late last week but added: ‘‘I think the minister has set Te Pūkenga an unachievable task, so it is always going to fail regardless of who is leading it.’’
National planned to keep asking parliamentary questions about Te Pūkenga and to push for going back to the old system and deal individually with institutions facing problems. That should have been the way things were handled in the first place, Simmonds said.
Stuff asked Hipkins how confident he is problems Te Pūkenga is facing will be sorted out in a timely way, how it will fund the bigger deficit it faces and whether he knew why more progress had not been made but he did not reply directly. ‘‘I have made my expectations clear and know Te Pūkenga is working hard on the transition,’’ he said in a statement. ‘‘I have also been clear the projected deficit was too high and that more work needed to be done there.’’
On Simmonds’ criticisms, he said: ‘‘National’s approach would lock in deficits and not fix the underlying issues.
‘‘Under the old model, long-term deficits were projected, rising to up to $156m in 2022. When Labour came into government we had to pump around $100m into a number of polytechnics just to keep the lights on. The model was unsustainable.’’ Asked about whether Town was still being paid, why he was on leave and for how long, and whether he was contributing at all to Te Pūkenga business at the moment, Hipkins deferred to Te Pu¯ kenga to answer.
A Te Pūkenga spokesperson said Town ‘‘will be fully stepping away from Te Pūkenga for the duration of his leave’’.