By Duncan Garner
More job losses are to come across the public service and John Key says he is making no apologies for the shake-up.
He says the public service needs to modernise.
Mr Key says no longer do people want to queue up for hours - they want to do it from their Smartphone.
Public servants work in the shadow of the Beehive - and that shadow is getting darker and more uncertain.
The Government is to embark on a fresh shake-up of the country's 38,000 public servants.
“It's quite a revamp of the public service,” says Mr Key.
But with the revamp will come more redundancies.
Mr Key warned of the following:
“You will see further mergers in the state sector.”
“You will see a sharing or resources in the back office and HR.”
“We expect and make no apology for wanting greater efficiencies in central Government agencies.”
All of this is code for more job losses.
Already National has taken the knife to the public service in its first three years.
All up 3151 jobs were slashed up until December last year.
This year it is signalled another 250 will go at Foreign Affairs.
- 50 at Te Puni Kokiri
- 24 at Defence
- 3480 all up
Mr Key says the world is changing and the public service needs to as well – he is suggesting people will be replaced by iPhones.
“We want people to deal with the Government over a Smartphone. We live in a world where all this available.”
But the Public Service Association (PSA) says the Government needs to be more up front.
“The Government is not really coming clean with how small they expect the public service to get,” says the PSA’s Brenda Pilott.
She says the Government cannot do more with less, and the impact will soon be clear to see.
“I fear we will see service cuts and less care and control.”
So it is clear Mr Key and his Government wants results in the public service.
It wants more mergers, it wants it smarter and more efficient.
But convincing the public that is happening is awfully difficult, especially when hundreds if not thousands of people are told they are out of a job.
3 News