Too many public servants?
And, if so, what comes next?
The Public Service Commission has released figures to Stuff about the numbers of public servants. This counts those in public-service departments, and not those in the wider state sector in schools, hospitals, etc. But many of the roles that are counted here would be classed as “front-line”, such as in Work & Income and Corrections.
So, there were 63,117 full-time equivalent (FTE) public service staff in June 2023. And the graph on the Stuff article tells a story of public policy change over the last 25 years: a steady increase in numbers in the Clark years (2000–2008), a trough during John Key’s National-led government (2008–2017), and then a steep increase under Ardern’s Labour government, including a spike in 2020/21, presumably due to the Covid-19 response.
The raw FTE numbers rose under Labour – but so did the population. So, looking at the FTE number of public servants per thousand population, the numbers rose from roughly 7.5 to 10.4 per thousand under Clark, and then from roughly 10 to 12 under Ardern.
From 2000 to 2023, the FTE staff number more than doubled, or increased by 117%, but the population increased by about 36%.
When the Key government came into power in late 2008, following the Global Financial Crisis, there was a push to reduce numbers of public servants, just as there is today under the new National-led administration. But the Key/English years only saw a shallow trough in numbers, and there were 9.8 per thousand by 2017.
The economists quoted in Stuff are rightly cautious: it’s hard to judge from a distance whether – and how many – jobs should be terminated without detailed information about what they produce in terms of “public value”. But, at a glance, it’s hard to argue that, over the last quarter of a century, the rise in numbers of public servants per thousand population from 7.5 to 12 has been accompanied by a proportional increase in quality and/or quantity of services to the people who need them.
Public servants are decent people who need to earn a living – and I know what it feels like to be downsized. “Bureaucrats” are a soft political target who can’t answer back as public political commentators. So it’s important to resist taking pot shots.
Another factor that makes it hard to make judgements about the numbers is the impact of technology. The ways in which we interact with government agencies, and our expectations when doing so, have changed since 2000. Notable, though, is the decline in staff numbers at IRD in recent years due to new IT.
Given that downsizing has commenced, it’s logical to ask “what next?” in terms of the aims and the “value proposition” of public services. It’s not as if the country doesn’t face complex needs and challenges, requiring service-delivery and forward thinking. Not least is the need to think about the impact of AI on the entire workforce – and that’s a subject on which political parties in this country have been all too silent.
While Luxon & Co may be doing what they regard as prudent in budgetary terms, seeking to balance up against tax-cuts and rebates, it appears – again – that they have no idea where they’re leading the country.
It is all arse about face.
The starting point should be what public services should we have? then what resourcing (staff and $) needed to provide those public services? From this the size of the public service follows.
Instead we get the sort of ideological blind faith approach that there must be inefficient spending in the public sector so if we cut budgets by some arbitrary amount (eg 6.5%) that will ensure efficiency in providing an undefined level of public services. Add in blather about front line services and back office services as if these are not intrinsically linked it must follow that we will all be better off.
Mix it all together and what we actually get is reckons rule.
I’m a retired frontline public servant of 45 years. Unlike the people slathering for the slashing of public expenditure, I have seen how the sector operates (the good and the bad) and how arbitrary cuts to budgets cripple its function and performance. I’ll wager that the very people howling for cuts will soon be howling again about the sector’s failure to meet their needs.
The preoccupation with public servant numbers is simplistic. Numbers are a dangerously inadequate metric of viability, resilience and purpose. Andrew Riddell has it right with his ‘starting point’ proposition. But the budget cuts appeal to those who have swallowed the political right’s hysterical demonising of the public service and of public servants. The same goes for right’s demonising of taxes. This hysteria has a near-anti-Semitic character - blame a particular group or sector for the problems your policies have created.
Rather than arbitrary budget cuts, this government would do better to look at how its childlike belief in the neo-liberal economy has corporatised the public sector, bending it all out of shape and building in massive distortions to function. These pressures institutionalise inefficiencies by forcing the sector to operate in ways entirely inconsistent with the delivery of public services.
For instance, today’s public service is paralysed by a new class of managers for whom the business of managing their organisation is vastly more important than the business the organisation is there to do. Internal structures, relationships and ways of working are wholly aligned with the business of management, not with operational needs. Much of the wastage in the sector is attributable to meeting the open-ended needs of these inward-looking managers.
Wastage is also attributable to the public’s hysterical demands for accountability for tax expenditure. Yes, you public-service bashers are crippling the sector. How so? In my department, the relentless pressure to demonstrate value for every tax dollar created large internal workforces dedicated solely to reporting. These officials do not deliver services to the public. Many are formerly the best of frontline operators now diverted to the reporting bureaucracy. Their needs and timetables take precedence over every other function, even to the extent of pausing critic operational work to feed data into their onerous reporting processes.
So, we’d be better off taking a careful look at how the policies of those critical of the public sector are directly responsible for the sector’s performance. Of course that won’t happen because it’s easier to deflect attention by feeding the virulent prejudices of this government’s lazy ideology.