Public service staff numbers could fall further - Ryall
Mr Ryall said it was "entirely possible" that number could drop even lower.
The government has not ruled out more jobs being cut from the public service.
State Services Minister Tony Ryall, who released the government's state services policy in Wellington this morning, said an earlier drive to reduce the number of people working in core government administration had seen that number fall from 38,859 FTEs to 36,475. Public sector staff numbers would now be capped at that lower amount.
Mr Ryall said it was "entirely possible" that number could drop even lower.
"It's a cap, not a floor."
However, the government did not have a specific future goal that it wanted to reduce staff numbers to, Mr Ryall said.
It was more about providing efficient and improved services, he said, particularly at the front line.
As well as setting the new cap on staff numbers, Mr Ryall said the government expected the public sector to find other areas where money could be saved, including $980 million over the next three years.
He said these savings would go towards improving frontline services and reducing debt.
Streamlining g public service back office procurement processes was expected to save $115 million over the next five years, while benchmarking within the state sector had identified more than $230 million a year that government agencies could save through greater sharing, standardisation and automation of back office processes and systems, he said.
Merging government agencies, such as the bringing together of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority and the Ministry of Fisheries, was expected to save 92 million over four years, papers released with the government's policy showed.
Mr Ryall said a recent poll found that a majority of those polled thought the performance of government services had improved "because we've had a strong focus on moving from back office administrative functions into improving the front line".
Colin Williscroft
Fri, 18 Nov 2011
Fri, 18 Nov 2011
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Public service staff numbers could fall further - Ryall
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