This morning I’m at the Government Administration Select Committee. We’re currently holding a public hearing on the Estimates for Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet. Officials have just confirmed that this year’s Budget has allocated about $6.5 million of new money for a new IT system that will allow Ministers to get their Cabinet papers online.
I asked whether they had been asked by the PM to find this money by ‘reprioritising’ their existing spending. Apparently not. It seems DPMC are subject to a different standard of accountability than the rest of the public sector.
Not a great look for the PM to find $6.5 m of taxpayers money to fund a new filing system for cabinet papers in the same Budget they hiked up taxes for paperboys, a move that is only going to raise $14 million over the next 4 years. Shows where John Key’s priorities lie…
If it comes with voice technology that can read the papers out loud they might actually find out what’s in them, for once?
What a good idea Jennifer. Has anyone tested the reading age/ability of our National MPs, particularly the Cabinet. We know they are meant to be good at counting -as in money, which they idolise – but this is not the same cognitive process as being able to read and process the written word proficiently.
There is also the fact that there are many men in the National Government and it is quite well known that males, on the whole, do not decode as well as females; hence many more women than men busily decoding enemy messages in WW2 in Britain.
Certainly this could answer the question of why the cabinet, especially our estemed pm, are often not on top of their portfolios and are unable to answer questions without stonewalling in Parliament and why they need so many consultants etc. to create and explain their policies.
Sorry about “esteemed” in my comment, edit failed.Corrected now.
Does El Jefe have to turn up to justify the spending like other ministers ?
Um, welcome to the digital age. Surely, being on select committees for example, you how much paper there was prior to them bring put on an online document management portal. and how much time went into preparing said paper documents, not yours ay, so who cares. Just a clerk somewhere. Well, terrible attitude. I guarantee an electronic filing system will pay itself off, and don’t just hate on it just because it doesn’t benefit you at this time.
Bloody oath Mc – these things pay for themselves. Like spending $9 million on consultants to allegedly save $12 million in MFAT.
C.f. #throwinggoodmoneyafterbad
C.f. #thehypocrisyofgovernmentdrivenausterity
all cabinet papers online ? Nicky Hager must be rubbing his hands together. The Chinese embassy would be well pleased too.
Meanwhile the cost of the major visit later this year by Charles and Camilla will cost a few million.
“Internal Affairs chief executive Colin MacDonald said it would try to meet the cost as best as it could from within existing baselines. The department is the parent body of Ministerial Services
from within existing baselines … one rule for the PMs department another for the department paying for the one off royal visit
Tim G. Um, did i mention consultants? no, im making a very specific statement with regards to the above blog post, about document management. please dont throw your confused arguement into the foray, go find another post which fits your argument, thanks.