1500 public service jobs axed, and more to go

State Services Minister Tony Ryall. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Government is promising more cuts to core public service jobs after saying yesterday that it had cut almost 1500 jobs last year and a further 130 Ministry of Health jobs will go in the next 15 months.

But the Opposition and the Public Service Association (PSA) say frontline services are beginning to show signs of stress as back-office support is reduced.

State Services Minister Tony Ryall yesterday gave an update on the Government's "cap of core government administration".

The number of full-time jobs in core administrative roles fell by 1480 or 3.8 per cent last year to 37,379.

At the same time, said Mr Ryall, 540 full-time equivalent jobs had been added in "key frontline agencies outside the cap", including Child, Youth and Family, Work and Income, and Community Probation.

"National campaigned to cap the size of the core bureaucracy and we've done that. This allows us to free up resources for improving frontline services," Mr Ryall said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health, which lost 201 jobs over the period, said it intended cutting 30 jobs by the end of the current financial year and a further 100 over the following 12 months.

After consultation with staff, the plan would probably be finalised by late May.

Mr Ryall confirmed more core public service jobs would be cut over the next few years.

"We've said to most government departments ... things are so tight in the economy they should not expect any extra money. So they are going to have to run their organisations on no funding increases and we expect as part of that they'll be looking at how they can run their businesses more efficiently in order to support the services that they provide to the public.

"We do expect there will be a number of public sector agencies and departments who will reduce their head counts over the next few years."

Mr Ryall said he did not want to predict how many jobs would go as "individual departments are going to be considering their circumstances over the next few years as they live within their limited financial resources".

Deputy Prime Minister Bill English also said further cuts were likely.

"We're working to a plan we laid out 12 months ago which was to keep the spending going through the bottom of a recession and then bring the lid down from the first of July this year."

At the last election National campaigned on capping core public service jobs, a policy PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott said was "a farce".

"The Government has been cutting, not capping, jobs at a time when unemployment rose to a 10-year high."

Ms Pilott said the Government was "squeezing the public service beyond the point at which it can deliver services to the quantity and quality that is required".

"What we hear from our members is that workload pressures are coming on very strongly".

Opposition leader Phil Goff also said the cuts were affecting services.

"If you're talking about the frontline, what is more important than frontline officers protecting our ports against biosecurity risks? What is more important than the child protection officers looking after our children? It does matter. Automatically it hurts our frontline."