16 IRD jobs to go in Napier

Napier's Inland Revenue office will lose a fifth of its staff in proposed cuts to regional offices.
The IRD announced the proposed changes yesterday. Napier staff numbers will drop by 16, from 87 to 71.
In total, 191 fulltime positions in offices in Rotorua, New Plymouth, Napier, Nelson and Invercargill will be axed by mid-2013.
Napier-based Labour MP Stuart Nash said the changes were "a big loss" for the city, but he was relieved that the losses were not as high as previously feared.
Mr Nash said he understood the losses reflected a decision to cut jobs from Community Relationships teams.
"These are the people who deal with customers face to face, and conduct visits to local businesses and organisations.
"Despite assurances to the contrary, this is a loss of frontline staff in our region and will have a negative effect on the service provided by the IRD in Napier," he said.
When Mr Nash said in December the regional office faced as many as 100 job losses, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne accused him of "firing from the hip with no substance".
Yesterday Mr Nash said those numbers were not "unfounded speculation" but based on genuine concerns being relayed to him by affected individuals.
Mr Dunne said the job losses proposed for Napier were the smallest of any of the centres and a full consultation period would follow before any decisions were made.
Community compliance and local investigator teams were being maintained at all regional offices, and it was proposed that Napier would retain existing debt management teams, which carry out nationally focused work.
"In other centres, it is proposed that many of those more broad-based, non-frontline functions will be centralised in the main centres," Mr Dunne said.
He said Mr Nash's previous claims about 100 losses had been shown to be "wide of the mark and utterly irresponsible".
Napier MP Chris Tremain said he was disappointed to see job losses, and that he had fought hard to keep jobs, such as the 40 debt recovery and management roles being kept locally.
"It's still disappointing ... but it's happening over 18 months so it's not immediate and IRD are offering some other opportunities over those 18 months."
Any changes would begin early next year.
IRD service delivery deputy commissioner Carolyn Tremain said it had been looking at where and how it delivered its services.
"We believe that work not requiring face-to-face contact should be grouped in larger centres, allowing regional sites to increase their focus on education and advisory services for their communities.
"We want to make it easier for people to comply with their tax obligations and receive payments."