Shake-up sees job losses at ministry sites

REDUCED: The Wanganui office of Te Puni Kokiri has lost three staff. PHOTO/LEWIS GARDNER 111214WCLGTEPUNIKOKIRI1

The Ministry of Maori Development's Te Tai Hauauru region has been enlarged - though there have been some job losses.

The new structure has been in place since November 3, according to Maori Development Ministry/Te Puni Kokiri chief executive Michelle Hippolite.

Te Tai Hauauru now includes offices in Nelson and Lower Hutt, with eight staff between them.

Those offices were previously in the Te Whanganui a Tara region.

Staff numbers across Wanganui, Manawatu, Taranaki and Ruapehu have been cut from 14 to nine.

Of the five jobs lost, two staff received redundancy and the other positions were either vacant at the time or the staff moved to work elsewhere in the region.

There are now four permanent staff in the Wanganui office, down from a previous seven. Ms Hippolite would not say whether Wanganui's former regional director kept his job.

There will now be one permanent staff member in Taumarunui and two each in Manawatu and Taranaki.

The manager of the enlarged region will be Willis Katene, who will start in mid-January. It is not clear which office she will work from.

The restructure is the first major change for Te Puni Kokiri since 1991, Ms Hippolite said. It aims to make the organisation simpler and more flexible.

Maori organisations now pick up some of Te Puni Kokiri's former functions, she said, and it is left with five key areas.

One is government relationships with whanau, hapu and iwi, and another is state sector effectiveness for Maori. The others are strengthening culture, education and economic wealth.