Not ‘Gliding On’: Why public service growth is good

When Labour formed a Government in late 2017, it vowed to make sure the public was getting better public services. A decade of National in power saw investment plummet, failed expensive experiments such as Serco badly running prisons and services reduced to bare bones, not to mention crumbling hospitals and schools.

Five years — and a once-in-a-lifetime global crisis — later, the public service is a vastly different place. Labour has invested heavily in rebuilding the workforce and what they provide, and we’re proud of what they’re achieving.

There’ll be no resting on our laurels. Further improvements will always be needed and gaining value for money remains critical — the public service is not expected to grow at the same rate in future. But it’s a far cry from the “do just enough” government attitude and demoralised workforce National left behind.

As the Opposition attempts to build a case that the public service is “too large” and claims, in an insult to the workforce, that the growth under Labour has all been among “bureaucrats”, it’s timely to set the record straight.

The image the Opposition wants people to see is one like Gliding On. They’re oldfashioned like that. It’s a con trick.

The number of permanent employees has grown from 47, 252 in 2017 to 61,100 in 2021. So where has the growth been?

It’s a positive story — of innovation, flexibility and better services.

The vast bulk in growth has been in frontline jobs. Half of the increase in the past year was temporary, directly attributable to the response to Covid-19. This includes people running MIQ facilities, rolling out the vaccination programme, supporting contact tracing, managing the border and providing welfare assistance to people and businesses affected by the economic impact of a global pandemic.

Another 40 per cent was to support the programmes the Government was elected to implement, such as responding to climate change, reforming the Resource Management Act to support development in cities and improve environmental protection, improving water quality and repairing mental health services; and to boost service delivery, including more

The vast bulk in growth has been in frontline jobs. Half of the increase in the past year was temporary, directly attributable to the response to Covid-19. Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins

support for schools and teachers and more protections for workers, consumers and businesses.

I’m proud of the fact pay has steadily improved, particularly at the lower levels and among those workforces shamefully ignored in the decade to 2017. Historical pay inequalities continue to narrow, and there are more women in senior positions. Crucially, public trust and satisfaction in the public service is at record levels.

As part of this growth, there are thousands more people working on the front line. It’s important to list some of these jobs to be able to imagine their faces. They are real people providing important public services to their communities, right across New Zealand.

They include: 940 corrections officers; 735 Winz case workers; 510 social workers; 520 education advisers for teachers and schools; 350 scientists working in biosecurity, compliance, fisheries, food safety; 345 customs officers; 200 special education teachers and speech therapists; 200 Stats NZ survey interviewers; 170 security guards; 160 parole officers; 120 rehabilitation counsellors in prisons; 85 psychologists; 75 fisheries officers; 55 meat and animal welfare inspectors; and 565 customer support in contact centres.

These are on top of the increase in the number of teachers, nurse positions and police officers.

So when the National Party talks about returning the public service back to pre2017 levels, the real questions should be which of these jobs do they not value enough to keep?

Chris Hipkins is Public Service Minister.