Environment jobs go in shake-up

Prime Minister John Key said he expected about 20 jobs would go in the restructuring. Photo / Kenny Rodger

A restructuring of the Environment Ministry is expected to result in about 20 job losses and the demise of about three of the former Labour Government's pet environmental projects.

Prime Minister John Key said he expected about 20 jobs would go in the restructuring which staff were told of yesterday.

It follows the department's review to find savings where possible and realign itself to meet the National Government's priorities to focus on policy advice in areas such as climate change and fresh air and water quality.

As a result, it was cancelling a programme for Government departments to become carbon neutral and the Gov3 project, which encouraged departments to be more energy efficient, recycle more and buy environmentally friendly products.

It was also discontinuing the Bioethics Council, which the ministry had provided support for and scaling back work on making households more energy efficient.

The Public Services Association estimated about 86 jobs would be affected.

Environment Ministry chief executive Paul Reynolds said although some staff cuts were expected, redundancies were "a last resort". Many could be re-deployed to other areas where the ministry was boosting its work, and cuts would be made by attrition where possible.

The restructuring proposal was presented to the ministry's 300 staff yesterday at a meeting in Wellington.

Dr Reynolds said he would consider feedback and make further announcements around Easter.

Environment Minister Nick Smith said the cuts were also because of a drop of about $26 million in its funding for the next year because the previous Labour Government had not renewed short-term funding for some projects.

Dr Smith said it was not realistic in the present economic climate to make up the shortfall.

However, Labour's spokesman Grant Robertson said National was breaking its promise that it would "cap" the bureaucracy by cutting jobs in the Environment Ministry on top of about 70 jobs from the Tertiary Education Commission.

He said claims Labour had starved the ministry of funding were wrong. Much of the $26 million short-term boost to its budget for this year was in one-off grants for specific projects which had since ended - such as the $8 million clean-up of the Tui mine.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said cutting programmes such as Gov3 showed National had an "anti-environmental agenda."

The project was credited with saving the Ministry of Social Development $400,000 in energy costs each year, and the Department of Corrections $300,000 a year.

Smith said the projects were poor value for money and "silly political correctness" which had minimal impact on emissions as a whole.

Government departments would be expected to take a "common sense view" to keeping emissions down.

"But it is not Government policy that we should move towards a carbon neutral public service. That was a cheap slogan from the previous Government."

He said the ministry would instead concentrate on climate change, biodiversity, waste management, and fresh water and air quality.

The Ministry of Social Development had also indicated staff cuts of about 5 per cent - about 500 positions, which it hoped to achieve through attrition.