Judith Collins: Public Service Minister says there's more to do on cutting down the public service

Judith Collins says she believes public service productivity has increased under her Government.  

It's on track towards the goal of cutting $400 million off contractor and consultant spending - with a forecast it'll cut more than double that figure.

The Public Service Minister says it's not a case of just shifting work onto public servants, because the service as whole shrank four percent in the year to June. 

"Quite clearly, people are working better - but more people are focused, I think, on delivering better results for taxpayers."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government's almost doubling its target for cuts to consultants and
contract to costs. Remember during the election, this is a
big deal for National Public Service. Minister Judith Collins has
come out today and said they're on track to save
eight hundred million dollars over two years instead of four
hundred ministers with me now, good evening, Oh, good evening, Ryan,
So how do you manage to double your cuts?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, I think it's just very clear messages that Nikola
Willis has given and now me as the minister, that
we need the public service doing the work that it's
paid to do and not asking consultants and contracts to
do that work. At the same time, understanding if there's
a specialist area that makes sense to use it. But

(00:43):
this is eight hundred million dollars of tax payer money
that's now being saved, So that's pretty much it. It's
very clear message.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Are there more full time public servants doing the work
of the consultants that otherwise would have been found out?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, no, because the numbers have actually dropped by about
four percent. So what's clearly working is more let's say,
more productivity. I expect if it's a four percent drop
in the core public service, which are basically your bureaucracy,
not your nurses and doctors and police officers and that.
So quite clearly people are working better, but more people focused,

(01:24):
I think on delivering better results for taxpayers.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I think people will be surprised to hear that it's
only down four percent. You know, December twenty three we
had sixty five thousand, we're still at sixty two thousand,
pre COVID, pre labor, we had forty nine thousand. You
guys said we were going to cut right back. They bloated.
I mean we're still bloated, an't we Well.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I certainly think that there is still a lot of
room for improvement, and so one of the things that
we're going to be doing is changing the Public Service Act,
because that requires public servants and the chief executives to
be evolved in all sorts of things. They have nothing
to do with delivering for the New Zealand taxpayers. So
we're bringing everything back to basics. You're going to see

(02:05):
more changes.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So like, what what are they doing that's not basic?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, I think what we've seen is reporting on everything, feeling,
all the sort of wellbeing stuff, you know, just get
back to the basics, do the job well.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
So you'll make changes to the Public Service Act. You'll
cut out the nonsense, the wellbeing stuff, and that will
mean you can let go of some more staff.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah. So I think it's really important though that when
you've got the staff working and try and do their best,
that we help them to do that. One of the
things is to get all the stuff out of the
way they don't need to be doing and just keep
them focused.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
But are you happy with sixty two, nine hundred and
sixty eight call public servants?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, I think that looks like a ridiculous number compared
to what it was six years before National came back.
And when you look at those prices, you'd have to say,
and what value for money is the taxpayer getting for it?
And I think that's why every agency is being told
you have your budget, you need to live with it,
and if you can deliver savings, that looks very good

(03:14):
for you and your future.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
So do you like the number or not?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
No? I don't. I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
What should it be next to me?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, I think it should be far closer to where
it was.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
But which is so you've got to get close to
that you've got to get rid of another twelve thousand
to ten thousand people public service.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, I think you look and see what is it
people are doing. Is it something that's worthwhile? Is it
going to add value for the taxpayer? If it's not,
why are we doing it? So these are some of
the very tough questions that we're putting too chief executives,
and you're going to see that. One of the things
they've said to us is that the Public Service Act,
which was changed in twenty twenty under the Durn government,

(03:57):
that needs to change because it's added all is extra
complexity onto the public servants jobs and they need to
get that.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
When are we're getting that.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh, you're going to start seeing that coming through pretty soon.
We've got papers going to through the cabinet process, and
you're going to find that things are going to change,
and they're going to change the better. I wreckon a
lot of public servants are going to say thank you
very much for making their job more efficient and effective.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
All right, hey minister, do you use signal?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I do? Indeed, what do you use it? For? Things
like here's a photo, or here's a good story, or
here's something else. So it's basically communications. But what we
don't use it for is anything that's secure or restricted.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
What do you use? Because they've got all sorts of
fancy equipment over in the US, do we I mean,
if you go overseas on a trip to China or whatever,
do you get special equipment? What do you use?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, if we go into places where we need to
be particularly aware of our our security of telephones and
oenophones is that we normally would use burner phones. So
we generally don't take anything that is restricted in any
way with us that's not you know, we just can't.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Do that, right then? Do then you just throw them
in the bin? What do you do with them?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Will we give them back to the agency that gave
them to us in the first place. So we do
lots of things like that. That's pretty standard for ministers.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
All right, minister, thank you very much for your time.
Sounds like you might need a glass of water after
that one.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
For more from Heather Duplessy, Allen Drive listen live to
news Talks.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
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