Editorial: Change leads new problems

OPINION: The Government is making great play of cutting its spending by restructuring bits of the state sector.

The scope is enormous. The newzealand.govt.nz website lists a bewildering array of publicly funded agencies, not quite from A (for ACC) to Z, but certainly to Y (for Youth Court).

The state sector comprises 41 departments and ministries, 84 statutory Crown entities, 11 Crown entity companies, 17 state-owned enterprises, 31 tertiary education institutions and a profusion of "schedule four entities" such as the Lottery Grants Board.

The line-up includes the low-profile Animal Control Products Limited, a state-owned enterprise which began operations in the 1950s under the direction and funding of the Agriculture Ministry and the New Zealand Forest Service, mixing toxins and later manufacturing finished bait products for controlling pests such as rabbits, wallabies, possums, rooks and feral ungulates. Would this bauble be missed from the family jewels if it were privatised? For now the Government is focused on merging the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MoRST) with the Foundation for Research, and Technology (FRST), absorbing the National Library and Archives New Zealand within the Internal Affairs Department, and returning the Food Safety Authority to the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry.

Ho, hum. Install new ministerial bosses and soon you will have another restructuring that produces few benefits but plenty of chaos.

MoRST was set up to give policy advice and FRST to allocate science funding, essentially to ensure that the agency providing the funding did not monitor the quality of its spending. Some time in the future those principles will appeal to a future government and they will be parted again. Archives NZ was separated from the cumbersome Internal Affairs Department because the chief archivist has a statutory duty to require other government agencies to keep and deposit their records. Before then Internal Affairs had control over the chief archivist in some matters and the chief archivist had control over the secretary in others. It was messy. Moreover it is an area of government where a special relationship between the statutory officer and Parliament needs preserving.

A richer vein for cost-cutting would be to close agencies of dubious value, such as the Families Commission. A political consideration – the Government's reliance on UnitedFuture support – will ensure its survival.

Public Service Association concerns about the proposed mergers essentially result from the prospect of job losses. Prime Minister John Key contends the restructuring is driven by the need to improve efficiency and deliver better services under tighter cost constraints.

But as he told the PSA when he was in opposition, few problems are solved by significant reorganisations and many more tend to be created.

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