Backroom boost
While Education Minister Chris Hipkins was “desperately” calling for crisis talks with the teachers’ unions, he was boosting the number and pay of “back office bureaucrats” at the Ministry of Education according to Act leader David Seymour. “Despite his cries of poverty, over the past 12 months Mr Hipkins has managed to increase the number of bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education by 300 and pay every employee $2000 more on average.” The number of Ministry of Education staff had increased from 2632 in 2017 to 2904 last year, he added, the average salary rising from $82,612 to $84,900.