Ministers deny number of job losses decided in proposed ministry merger

Government ministers are denying reducing public service headcount is at the centre of its intended ministry merger, saying a fixed number of job losses has not been decided.

Ministers Chris Bishop, Penny Simmonds, Simon Watts and Judith Collins today announced plans to create the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport by merging the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Transport, and local government functions from the Department of Internal Affairs.

The agency would become fully operational by July next year, with a chief executive expected to be appointed before then.

There were about 1300 FTEs including vacancies across the soon-to-be merged agencies.

A Public Service Commission spokesperson said it had started putting together an “Integration Management Office”, which would work across the four agencies to manage the transition.

The spokesperson couldn’t speculate on how many jobs would be lost as a result.

“It is too early to determine how many roles may be affected by the merger, but when bringing multiple agencies together some duplicated roles will likely be affected. Further detail will be known as organisation design work is completed.”

Bishop, Minister of Transport and Housing, maintained the intent behind the merger was driving “better government” instead of reducing cost.

“Of course there will be efficiencies on the way through, we want to be efficient and nimble, so of course that will happen, but that’s all for next year.”

He acknowledged the commission had provided ministers with scenarios of a revised headcount but he refused to detail them, saying no decisions had been made.

Asked about the decision to announce the merger without headcount details a week before Christmas, Bishop said he had hoped to address the months-long speculation about a merger.

“We just thought better to be upfront and transparent with the people who work in the agencies and also the public around what’s going on.”

He confirmed he and other ministers would be meeting with staff from the agencies to reassure them they were “very high-performing”.

“Undoubtedly there’ll be a mixed reaction from some, however, I’m going to say to them all alongside other ministers over the next couple of days exactly what I’m saying to you, which is that we’ve thought really carefully about this, we did debate it for some months.

“In the end, we came to the view that these functions are so connected to each other and so important and we want the stream of advice to be integrated and coherent, that we decided it was worth going ahead, but it’s not a decision we’ve made lightly.”

Bishop estimated setting up the new ministry would cost about $30 million with savings not derived for some years.

In an earlier statement, Bishop argued the move was necessary to address complications caused by shared responsibility for various reforms.

“We do not believe the current structures of government can deliver effectively on this strong mandate and change is required. The system is too fragmented and too unco-ordinated.”

Public Service Minister Judith Collins agreed the merger could be seen as a “test case” in addressing unnecessary duplication.

“What we’re doing is working on this particular merger to make sure that we get it right, that we don’t end up with an enormous behemoth that doesn’t actually do anything really and to make sure that we do that to look in the future to possibly others.”

Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.