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Posts Tagged ‘State Services’

National’s latest targets

Posted by on July 1st, 2012

Is it possible for the government to set out a list of targets for the public service that are both worthy and meaningless at the same time? That seems to have been the tone of debate around National’s latest Better Public Services announcement. There aren’t really any targets in there that anyone would disagree with, but it ain’t the ambitious ‘brighter future’ government John Key promised us 4 years ago. Where is the goal to close the wage gap with Australia? Where is the goal to reduce our overseas debt? Where is the goal to lift wages and create more highly paid jobs?

National’s latest set of targets also look pretty hollow and meaningless in the context of what they’ve actually been doing since they took office. So let’s look at the actual targets and how the rhetoric matches the reality.

1. Reduce the number of people who have been on a working age benefit for more than 12 months

Yet National cut the training incentive allowance to make it difficult for DPB mums to get higher education. 50,000 people have lost their jobs under National, and unemployment has been persistently high. Access to Student Loans has been restricted and they’re contemplating putting interest back on student loans. Lack of jobs is the key reason why people are on the benefit and the Government’s response is “it is what it is” with no sign of the 170,000 jobs they promised.

As my colleague Jacinda Ardern pointed out during question time, National’s goal to reduce the number of people on job-seeker benefits for more than 12 months by 30% means they’re still banking on there being 20,000 more people in that group than there were when they took office. Hardly an ambitious target…

2. Increase the number of young children in ECE

National’s cuts to ECE subsidies mean parents now have to pay higher fees for a lower quality service, hardly a plan to increase participation. In 2010 Key’s Government cut $400 million from the ECE budget which saw more than 2,000 ECE centres have their funding reduced. If parents are to believe Key’s commitment to ECE then he needs to immediately rule out the controversial recommendation from his ECE Taskforce to cut the universal subsidy for 20 hours ECE.

Increasing participation shouldn’t be the only goal for ECE. More bums on seats is good but we also need to ensure that ECE teachers are qualified and skilled enough to give children the best learning environment possible. Nationals ditching of the target of 100% qualified staff in teacher-led ECE services is will reduce the quality of ECE learning and the potentially transformational benefits children can get from it.

3. Increase infant immunisation rates and reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever.

Under National we’ve seen more children going to hospital with poverty related diseases, including rheumatic fever. Overall, hospital admissions are up by 4800 in the past 3-4 years. New Zealand’s rate of rheumatic fever is 14 times higher than the OECD average. Medical experts have blamed the rise on damp houses, poverty and a lack of primary healthcare. This is not a problem the healthcare sector alone can solve.

4. Reduce the number of assaults on children.

On 1 April 2011 Tariana Turia announced that funding from the following programmes had been ‘reallocated’:

  • Te Rito Collaborative Community Family Violence Prevention Fund
  • Advocates for Children and Young People Who Witness Family Violence programme
  • Family Violence Education Services

5. Increase the proportion of 18 year olds with NCEA level 2 or equivalent qualification

This is a long-term goal and a good one, although I would question the assumptions made in the analysis of the current trend data, which seems to assume on current trends growth in the number of 18 year olds hitting the target will diminish. Why do I call it a long-term goal? Because to achieve it we need to look at things like early childhood education (see above), improving student engagement (technology teaching anyone?) and teacher professional development (funding cut under National).

6. Increase the proportion of 25-34 year olds with advanced trade qualifications, diplomas and degrees

Where to begin? National cut the successful Skill Enhancement programme in Budget 2010. The Skill Enhancement programme provided vocational training for young Māori and Pasifika, had run since 1993 and achieved 82% positive outcomes. The number of Modern Apprenticeships has declined 10% in the past two years without any attempt of intervention or support from National.

National has cut $145 million out of Industry Training, money which could be invested into up-skilling young people, but most of which has gone elsewhere. The $40 million Community Max scheme failed to get people into jobs and in many cases created little more than pumpkins. Access to Student Loans has been restricted as well.

7. Reduce the rates of total crime, violent crime and youth crime.

Well, I guess cutting funding for the police is one way of reducing the rates of reported crimes.

8. Reduce re-offending

Prioritised funding to build more prisons (Wiri) instead of rehabilitation programs. 1.1% increase in spending on prisoner employment, rehabilitation and reintegration last year is insufficient address the recidivism rates given the reconviction rate has gone up under this Government to over 62%.

9 & 10. New Zealanders can complete their transactions with the Government easily in a digital environment.

Hardly ground-breaking stuff is it? If anything this is just the government catching up with the private sector.

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Consultants and contractors

Posted by on April 11th, 2012

Keith Ng has been digging around the issue of government use of consultants. He’s unearthed some stats that show the use of consultants within the public service has increased under National, despite their promise to bring greater efficiency to public services.

This was inevitably going to be one of the consequences of National’s arbitrary ‘cap’ on the number of people employed by the public service. If government departments aren’t allowed to employ new staff, but still have to do the same amount of work, or in some cases even more, what will they do? They’ll contract the labour in, and it looks like that’s what’s happening.

As Danya Levy’s story on Stuff reminds us, last month the Defence force had to admit that it had rehired two Navy staff just weeks after making them redundant after it was unable to fill their roles. The more arbitrary cuts National inflicts, the more of this we’re going to see.

I’ve blogged before that I support a greater focus on efficiency and outcomes within the public service, but the National government are doing things back to front. They’re too focused on what they can cut and what they can sell, rather than reviewing what they actually want the public service to deliver. That’s where there attention should be focused.

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Getting public sector reform right

Posted by on March 4th, 2012

In the past few days a few more details have started to emerge about National’s plans for further cuts to the public service. It’s been interesting to note how the current rhetoric emanating from the top floors of the Beehive hasn’t been matched by the reality so far.

As Andrea Vance reports, despite putting over 2,500 people out of work, National’s bold plan to save $1billion over 3 years has come up short, with only $20m in savings actually realised.

In my view, the National government have got the whole process around the wrong way. There is room for improvement in the way our public services are delivered, and we should start by asking how that can happen, rather than starting by asking how much we can cut.

I tend to agree with Colin James, who has argued that greater efficiency should be a flow on effect of greater effectiveness, not the other way around.

John Key talked only of efficiency at a recent press conference in which he discussed the “better public services” programme. He did not mention effectiveness… But in the real world where people, not equations, live, efficiency is an ingredient of effectiveness, which is the translation of outputs into recognisable, measurable — and desired– outcomes. Better public services will be better only if they are effective. John Key didn’t make a good start.

National started off entirely on the wrong foot three years ago. Then they weren’t focused on outcomes or even outputs. They were focused on ‘inputs’ in the form of staffing numbers, rather than worrying about what those staff actually do/did.

What we should be asking is what New Zealanders expect from their public services and how that can best be delivered. There is certainly a lot of room for improvement, and again I agree with Colin James:

[There is now] an expectation now that goods and services will be custom-made and so the means of access to them and delivery of them be customised. This expectation has been building for two or three decades as technology and globalisation have enabled a transition from mass production to mass customisation. Particularly younger people have that expectation. Fordism is long dead in the private sector and is dying in the public sector. The factory state was time-bound in the twentieth century.

Reform in the public sector is necessary and should be a positive thing, but we need to start by asking the right questions. Focusing on inputs and outputs, rather than the outcomes we want our public service to achieve sets any reform agenda up for failure before it’s even started.

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A more responsive public service

Posted by on February 14th, 2012

Can our public services be more responsive to the needs of New Zealanders? Yes. Can the public service be more efficient? Yes. Will we achieve these things through arbitary cuts that are designed to save a certain amount of money, rather than deliver services better? No.

Improving New Zealanders’ access to services, like passport applications, through new technology and data sharing between government agencies makes sense. But we need to make sure that systems are robust and that many people who don’t have access to the latest technology can still get help from a real person, face-to-face.

We also shouldn’t over-estimate the potential for such innovations to save money. In their initial development they can be costly, and even once they’re fully implemented, someone still needs to be there behind the scenes to make sure they’re maintained (a website is only as good as the content being posted to it).

Some of John Key’s more radical proposals should be very carefully scrutinised. His idea of more user-pays police services, for example, sets a lot of alarm bells ringing.

Many Kiwis will also be alarmed to hear John Key talk about centralising public service administration and greater use of private sector contractors in the same breath. The idea that we could see regional offices closed and replaced with call-centres in Mumbai will be abhorrent to many. We cannot afford to have our public services lose touch with the very people they are set up to help.

We should focus all our attention on how we make public services better. Arbitrary cost cutting, yet more restructuring, and contracting out to the private sector won’t make the public service more efficient or improve our economic situation in the long-term.

National is being exposed for its inability to come up with a coherent plan for economic growth. It’s only ideas are to sell our assets and slash the public service. We can’t ‘nickel and dime’ our way to greater prosperity.

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