Fleur Fitzsimons: PSA National Secretary on the Government asking about further cost cuts in the public service

Public servants appear unconcerned by the Government's recent request to help identify further cost cuts. 

Thousands of public servants across all agencies have been asked in a census to identify taxpayer value in their work, and any changes needed.  

PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons told Andrew Dickens the survey was expected as it comes around every five years.  

She says they don't think it's going to lead to any more harsh cuts, because there is nothing left to trim.  

Fitzsimons says there is room for efficiencies, and she hopes the Government listens to workers ideas. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But the public service has been asked by the government

(00:02):
to figure out how they could make more cuts. Thousands
of workers have been asked in an internal census to
identify areas for further cost cutting across every government agency,
and the results are expected in July. So PSA Assistant
Secretary Flurfit Simon's joins me. Now, helloflur good morning. SO
Commissioner Brian Roach commissioned this. He's been very insistent that

(00:24):
the public service start to drive performance themselves. How open
is the service to this sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
A lot of people are very willing to share their
ideas about how the public service can be run better.
But it's hard to take this government seriously on this
given they imposed harsh and deep cuts without any consultation
of this nature with public servants. They had government departments
come up with proposals in compete isolation from what people
actually think who are doing the job. So it's really

(00:52):
hard to take them seriously. But also it's important to
remember this is a regular census. It happens every five years.
We don't think that it's going to be able to
deliver the kind of harsh cuts that the government's already
imposed in the future because there is just nothing more
to cut, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So you're saying there's nothing more to.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Cut, that's well, the government has already dismissed hundreds of
public servants, including people like dog trainers and customs people
who work on the front line of stopping the digital
harm and exploitation that happens to children, people who try
and help intercept scams that often target the elderly. So

(01:33):
if the government is actually serious about investing in public
services that deliver to New Zealanders, it won't make further cuts.
Are there rooms for efficiencies? Absolutely? Do public servants have
good ideas about how to find them? Yes, they do,
and we really hope that the government will listen to
what public servants say. That not just through the survey,
through all sorts of interactions that including the union actually

(01:55):
does and we actually did ourselves prior to the round
of cuts surveys with public servants and came up with
a whole range of ways that the public service could
be more efficient that the government never listened to.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
But this is why the census has happened, this is
why Brian Roach has asked for it. They're asking you
for the ideas and you've just said to me there
are no more places for cuts, and there is there's
a perception that the public servants are so reticent about
this and they don't want to provide better value for money.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
No, the sensence happens every five years anyway. What I'm
saying is it asks a whole range of questions. For example,
it asks about the appetite for risk in a particular agency.
It asks for the workloads, how high are your workload?
Is it manageable? It asks a whole lot of questions
about working from home, are you paid fairly? But it's
not going to deliver the kind of roadmap for further

(02:47):
cuts that the government is looking for. There is no
room to cut further. It's been cut to the bone.
You are going to further undermine the services that New
Zealanders rely on if you make cuts to our cherish
important public service.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, you keep saying there's no room for cuts, and
you're making an assumption before you know. The results aren't
out until July, and you're already making that assumption.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, what I'll tell you is that there's already been
so significant a cut to the work that our public
servants do. We are unable to attract and retain people already.
This government is not going to find through this survey
a whole lot of ways that can cut more jobs
or save more money. What we actually need to see

(03:32):
is a commitment to the public service and more investment.
And this isn't That's not the purpose of the survey anyway.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
One final question though, I don't know if you watched
Q and A yesterday and had the outgoing on. Woodsman
Peter Bouchier very critical of the public service, particularly health
and corrections, and he said they were talking about our
public servants dedicated to providing value for money.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
New Zealand has a corruption free, high quality public service
that is renowned worldorldwide. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely?
Are we going to stand in the way of positive
improvement that makes the ability of public sements that deliver
their jobs. Well, no we're not. But yes, there's work
to do. But let's also value the people that do

(04:13):
this important work to blur.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Thank you so much for your time today for Fitzimon's
PSA's Assistant secretary. For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge,
listen live to news talks. There'd be from five am
weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,