The Treasury has bucked a trend of slashing spending on external contractors, having almost tripled its spend in that area compared with the 2007/2008 financial year.Treasury spent $1,968,000 on external contractors in the 2008 year according to figures o
The Treasury has bucked a trend of slashing spending on external contractors, having almost tripled its spend in that area compared with the 2007/2008 financial year.
Treasury spent $1,968,000 on external contractors in the 2008 year according to figures obtained by Radio New Zealand, but that figure rose to $5,542,000 in the 2009/2010 year.
In response, the Treasury said in the last financial year it took on many new responsibilities including doing public sector value for money work and dealing with the economic fiscal crisis.
Part of the money was spent on increasing its financial operations area, including establishing the government-backed deposit guarantee scheme.
There was also a slight increase in staff, from 324 to 341 between over the two financial years.
Radio New Zealand said most departments and ministries it had looked at showed decreases in spending on external consultants, but the Corrections Department had shown an increase of about $1.5m to almost $26m.
While there had been staff cuts at most departments, figures from the Ministry of Education, ACC and Inland Revenue all showed there had been increased wage costs.
After being elected in 2008, National made it clear it wanted spending in government departments to be paired back.
It made an election pledge to cap state sector positions and then set a cap for core government administration at 38,859 full-time equivalent staff from December 2008.
State Services Minister Tony Ryall yesterday said latest figures from the State Services Commission showed the number of full-time equivalent staff positions in the core government administration, as at June 30 was 36,771 – about 2100 fewer than when the cap was imposed.
Mr Ryall said many departments would have little or no increase in baseline funding over the next few years and further reductions would happen as chief executives managed budgets.
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