Public service cuts: Who might be spared?
Painting a full picture of the potential public service cuts is becoming increasingly difficult as the Budget approaches and more and more ministries front up with how many job cuts they are proposing.
But some areas are safe, or at least seem safe. A range of agencies and departments are not yet proposing disestablishing roles. We look at some of the ministries and areas where jobs may remain untouched.
The Defence Force According to official information released by the Defence Force, between August last year and the end of February, 2024, NZDF disestablished 158 roles as part of a restructure – 143 of them were staffed at the time.
But as of this month, the NZDF has no plans to cut any more roles.
NZDF has been asked to find 6.5% in savings, and is working to find those savings. Ministry of Regulation Asked what areas, aside from the “frontline”, that he would like to see remain the same or have more resources put in, Associate Finance Minister David Seymour said they were trying to build capacity around regulation.
“It will have a much bigger presence than the regulatory team at Treasury, which will be moving over there, along with other additional people, so there’s a few changes there.
Seymour said as far as the Regulation Ministry goes, they believed “it is worth spending some money on getting regulation right, and again, you’ll see that as a budget detail”.
“It’s difficult to make cost savings on something that didn’t previously exist. Obviously it’s got to be done very cleanly and efficiently, but we can't really cut if it was zero before.”
Inland Revenue (IR)
Not too long ago IR went through a mass shedding of staff, as it planned to cut 1500 jobs between 2018 and 2021, dissolving more than 1000 jobs by September 2020.
With its 6.5% savings target, IRD was already looking at how to become “more efficient”, a spokesperson told The Post, saying they were confident they could reduce expenditure in that way.
“At this stage IR is not looking to reduce staffing levels beyond business-as-usual changes,” they said on Thursday.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Despite being given a 6.5% savings target, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not strayed from its statement to media over the last few months that it is working with its minister Winston Peters on the Budget 2024 process. Peters was asked last month by Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Damien O’Connor how he was going to handle the cut, if he wants to expand New Zealand’s footprint.
“How are we going to handle it? Of course we can always find economies, but we’ve got to start with firstly understanding that there’s some things you cannot sacrifice. What I’m talking about is anti-inflationary, because its not spent inside the New Zealand economy, its spent offshore.”
The Post asked Finance Minister Nicola Willis if she was expecting a 6.5% drop in spending from MFAT.
“Because we’ve set a target for each agency doesn’t mean necessarily they will return that exact amount, because once they’ve put their proposals to us, we’re then working through them to decide which we progress in which we don’t,” she said.
Te Whatu Ora – Health NZ
Unlike the health ministry, which has a proposal that could affect more than a quarter of positions, Te Whatu Ora – Health NZ has not been given a cost-saving target.
Last month, Health Minister Shane Reti said savings at the ministry were expected to be filtered through to frontline services at Te Whatu Ora, which runs the country’s hospitals.
“The savings in health will stay in health. How that will be best reprioritised is what we’re ... figuring out now.”
The “frontline”
Whoever happens to be defined within the ‘frontline’ of that agency – social workers, police officers, corrections officers.