Nats slam number of Govt reviews

Since the early days of the current Government, National has accused it of splurging on public reviews, working groups and advisory panels, saying the situation was out of control.

Ministers says it’s a complete beat-up, National says it’s been a consultants’ bonanza.

The second year of the Parliamentary term has now wrapped up, so how many reviews have actually been set up, how many have been finished and how do the numbers stack up?

As it turns out, the country’s civil service watchdog — the State Services Commission — last year began quietly keeping track with its own official list of inquiries, reviews and advisory groups.

According to the National Party, there have been a whopping 302 government reviews and groups launched since the Government came to power.

But the State Services Commission puts the number at 103.

It says 55 of those have been finished, and the Government will go into election year with 48 still going — including 19 that are designated as part of the core work of public agencies, such as regular reviews of laws.

Another two reviews are slated to start this year.

By comparison, the previous National Government launched 113 reviews by the middle of 2010 — roughly half way through its second year in Government, according the party’s own count.

So how are the two lists so different?

State Services Minister Chris Hipkins calls the opposition’s figures farcical and disingenuous.

“There’s probably a couple of dozen reviews that you can say are uniquely this Government and the vast bulk of the rest of things on the list are Government business as usual,” he said.

“If you did the same exercise for when they were in Government — every time they had a meeting — the list would be just as long, if not longer.”

National counts the Pike River Recovery Agency and the cannabis referendum and Hipkins points to the listing of legally mandated governance groups at Unitec three times.

Hipkins said he was unapologetic the Government is spending time consulting on policies. “That’s what good governance is about.”

But the man keeping track for the Opposition, finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith, says the SSC’s list is overly conservative and backs his party’s count.

“Our criteria is any group that had work of ministers outsourced, or the announcement of a review or an inquiry, or any sort of new bureaucracy that’s established,” he said.

“Every Government, of course, has working groups. But it’s the sheer volume. This Government has been a consultants’ bonanza.”

That means National counts a number of smaller taskforces — for example one looking at the gender pay gap, which the SSC doesn’t.

It also includes a number of investigations into individuals — such as into former Government Minister Meka Whaitiri or former Waikato DHB chief Nigel Murray — which are omitted from the Government list.

Numbers aside, Goldsmith points to biggest working group to come back last year — the Tax Working Group — as a sign of a problem. After 18 months of work, the group recommended a capital gains tax, but the Government didn’t follow through because of opposition from New Zealand First.

“When the outcome of some of the big ones is that virtually nothing has happened, you have to ask questions,” Goldsmith said.