TIME TO SORT SHIT

John Key has sent a strong message - life in the public service is going to change - because it has to.
We say - make a super policy Ministry - so out with Ministry of Women's Affairs, Ministry of Maori Affairs, and the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and the Families Commission Pacific Island Affairs.

One of the drivers of this government is to get the public service to act like a well oiled machine - So housing all policy under one umbrella is sensible. At the moment the development of policy requires endless hours of consultation with other departments about their thoughts and feelings on various initiatives. Putting it all into one big melting pot is just common sense. So any department where the core aim is to increase the economic and social well being of people should be housed together.

The Government has already started on the super groupings with Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fish - which will probably end up as the Ministry for Primary Industries.

There are already moves to look at bulk purchasing, streamlining tendering processes and taking a good hard look at what is nice to do as opposed what is necessary. So the job of getting greater efficiencies from the public sector is well under way. But there is still a lot more that can be done.

The next few years will be interesting and challenging. But changes to the public sector are not in the Governments " nice to do projects" they are an absolutely necessity if we are to climb out of the economic troughs we can expect to face in the next few years.

AS WE PREDICTED

IRD is in for a shake up. Its been the talk of the town for a couple of weeks.

We think that customs will also see some changes. And please , Womens Affairs. Scrap it.

WHO IS GOING TO FEEL THE KNIFE?

Stuff reports on the human face of public service cuts. Its a crap story, one source and an unnamed one at that. Really really shoddy journalism.

However , they are right we are expecting some cuts to be announced pretty soon. Now if the Govt was being really pragmatic they would fold Womens Affairs into the Ministry Of Social Development. Customs may be feeling a bit underworked with drops in cargo in and out of the country. And what about staffing at our airports?

We expect to see some cuts in IRD - as businesses fold and there is less processing, All Policy departments need to be trimmed - halve them. Simple.

All publications to be reviewed. Move most on line. Ban Statements of Intent. WE dont want departments INTEND to do we want to know what they WILL do and then put some KPI's around it.

Building and Housing can be cut to half of its current staffing levels.

That's just a few for starters.

THEY HAVE HIDDEN THEM

The Herald looks at the cap that SSC Minister Tony Ryall has imposed on the public service and has zeroed in on the communications sector. The numbers don't stack up. The government needs to insure that it takes a look at " Information departments " which are a home for all PR people who specialise in on line communications and often internal communications specialists. The trend started midway last year to shuffle communications staff around and tuck them in what is essentially an adjunct to IT departments while still churning out on line communications and in some cases publications. It was cynical ploy by comms managers to ensure that they still had a small army under their command.

So someone needs to go through all departments and ask some very specific question's to get the real answer to how many communications specialists are hiding in " non communications " groups.

PUBLIC SERVICE ON NOTICE - ESP COMMS

Well this will get the unions all fizzy and seriously reduce the muffin and coffee budgets.

Hon Tony Ryall

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HOOTON'S A WIMP

We love the NBR website - its is a must read for breaking business stories written in a snappy informative style. And they have good columnists too. David Farrar and Matthew Hooton. Trouble is David's column appears on line . Hooton's doesnt - so we went out and bought a inky one and have painstakingly typed it out . Today he is calling for a Masakari in the public service.



We couldn't agree more and have blogged on the issue many many times - In fact that blog waas one of our most popular ever.



Anyway back to Hooton.







Here is his column

The government has begun its long-awaited cuts to the central bureaucracy.

Finance Minister Bill English is reviewing departments’ lowest-priority spending, 86 jobs have gone at the Ministry for the Environment and 70 at the Tertiary Education Commission, and Labour’s Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson – the country’s leading apologist for the public service – is already fretting about policy advisors at Justice, Social Development and the National Library.

The cuts are long overdue.

So indulgently did Labour fatten the public service that Mr Robertson’s electorate notoriously has the highest average income in the country and office space in the capital costs more than in Auckland.

Worryingly, though, National is talking of a mere razor gang when wholesale butchery is required. It should put away its Gillette Mach 3 and wield a masakari. Whole departments should be abolished.

Case Study: Tourism

Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) is the government agency that promotes New Zealand globally. Compared with its competitors in Australia and elsewhere, it operates on a lean budget of just $69 million annually.

In the ten years since then Tourism Minister Lockwood Smith, TNZ chairman Peter Allport and chief executive George Hickton launched their “100% Pure” marketing strategy, annual tourist numbers have leapt 52% to 2.4 million, average length of stay is up 24% and earnings are now $5.9 billion, up a massive 53%.

Taxpayers might think that a junior Treasury analyst could work out that TNZ does a good job, and that a clerk at the Office of the Auditor General could check no one’s hand was in the till, but you would be wrong.

In fact, TNZ is monitored and evaluated by its board, its auditors and minister; by the Treasury, the State Services Commission and the Auditor-General; by the ministries of Women’s Affairs, Maori Development (TPK), Pacific Island Affairs and Ethnic Affairs; by a select committee of Parliament; and of course by the industry itself, including the Tourism Industry Association, the airlines, the Inbound Tour Operators Council, the Hospitality Association, the Motel Association, Regional Tourism Organisations and by dozens of tourism reporters and publications around the country.

This bureaucracy was not enough for Labour. In 2002, it set up a new Ministry of Tourism to advise the minister on “board appointments, roles and functions” and oversee TNZ’s “overall contribution to the government's policy objectives.” The ministry has 24 full-time staff and an annual budget of $7 million, more than 10% of all the money TNZ has to do the real work of getting tourists to New Zealand.

As a result, the levels of accountability from the person who places advertisements in the People’s Daily now run through TNZ’s Shanghai office, to the general manager consumer marketing, to the chief executive, to the board, and now to the ministry, and on to the minister, currently none other than the prime minister himself – all overseen by at least seven other government agencies. Everyone in this process, except perhaps the person who places the ads, earns over $100,000 a year.

Were the Ministry of Tourism simply abolished, and TNZ left to get on with the job, overseen by “just” seven other government agencies, the taxpayer would save $21 million over the next three years, and no one would notice any difference.

The Ministry of Tourism is far from being the worst case. Take the masakari to the corporate welfare programmes of the Ministry for Economic Development and NZ Trade and Enterprise; abolish the pointless Tertiary Education, Families and Electricity commissions; simplify the Emissions Trading Scheme so it won’t cost tens of millions to administer; slash the “policy advice streams” of TPK, Youth Development, Women’s Affairs and so forth, and you’ve saved a billion dollars before breakfast.

Not a single doctor, nurse, teacher, police officer, solider or overseas marketing clerk would be affected. There could even be money left over for pay rises.

Yip Hooton is on the money but we think he is being wimpy though which is unusual. He needs to harden up.



We reckon that a big shiny sharp edged Masakari is not the right tool for the job.

This is really whats needed ...

LINE BY LINE DOLLAR BY DOLLAR THEY GO

People in and out of Government departments are head down and tushes up as they pour over the books of each and every Government department and Ministry. Line by line the go, project by project, programme by programme, trimming , snipping , biffing out , asking why, asking how and asking "what the fuck?"


Up they front to Ministers with weasel words, fawning over their new masters whispering n how good they have been and how much they have trimmed, offering up only dust, only to be told to go away and come back with more. Some have been told twice already that they must do better. CE's stare at you with the eyes of the hunted in the lift. It is a new dawn and the cold light of reality sees them shiver.

It is a beautiful thing to behold. People in the hinterland should be allowed to come to Wellington to watch to give them some satisfaction that this government that they gave their good votes to, is performing financial liposuction on the bloated beast that is the public service.

Over coffee you hear the whines and the howls and see the tears from some as their little fiefdoms are sucked of fat. In other corners rivers of joyful tears run down the faces of the pragmatic as finally they see the waste being put in a bucket and turfed out. Gone are the raspberry and white chocolate muffins, gone are the two course luncheons for little meetings, Going are the Koru Club cards, gone are the oversized rentals. Going are the spurious overseas conferences for " networking." Going are the crap documents in huge storerooms that serve no purpose, remain unread, never distributed.

All is Bliss - just bliss.

BELLISIMO

Today we had lunch with the Gun Runner one of my mates and a good woman.
Anyway, we tend to head to Bella Italia . It is superb.

We had the Baked Cannelloni with fresh spinach, Ricotta filling and bechamelle sauce and seriously we wanted to turn up my plate and lick off the last of the sauce.

The GR had her usual -Spaghettini with prawn garlic, chilli and rocket leaf . It looked yum - it always does. It has a nice deck and you can watch out for really famous people as they ply their various trades down the artery of Wellingtons bureaucracy, better known as The Terrace.

KEY TREATING PEOPLE LIKE ADULTS.

We are happy to lead by example. Times are tough - its time to get tough so we are more than happy for all Public servants to miss out on a pay rise this year. And amongst the Roarprawn ranks is more than one public servant. So good on Key for raising the thorny issue. That's what we like to see - balls. And we heard Goff wittering on RNZ this morning about the fact that Key should legislate to stop pay rises among the top echelons of the public service and MP's. That's the difference between National and Labour - National charts the direction and expects people to act like responsible grown ups. Labour wants to be in charge and doesn't trust people to be grown up - the Nanny state.