By Alex Tarrant
Treasury says NZ$236 million of savings could be made in the NZ$1.8 billion worth of annual administration and support services spending from 33 government agencies through efficiency improvements.
The figure comes from a Treasury review and report of state sector administration and support services spending as government looks to cut back-office costs and tighten its budget.
Finance Minister Bill English welcomed the report, saying government was “committed to moving resources from the back office to the frontline so we can deliver improved public services to taxpayers with little or no new money over the next few years”.
The report would also help inform the discussion of the government’s desire to merge certain agencies, Treasury Deputy Chief Executive Andrew Kibblewhite said.
“The report shows that the agencies spent about NZ$1.8 billion on administrative and support services in the 2009/10 financial year and that there is a significant variation in service cost, efficiency, and effectiveness across agencies,” Kibblewhite said.
Administration and support spending levels across agencies were quite variable, ranging from 3% to 36% of total organisation running costs. Some variation was attributable to agency size, as smaller agencies were more affected by fixed costs, and some variation was due to the nature of agency operations.
Functions measured included Human Resources (HR), Finance, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Procurement, Property, and Corporate and Executive Services.
“The report concludes that making these services more efficient can save more than NZ$236 million a year and that service quality can also improve,” Kibblewhite said.
“Key opportunities include leveraging knowledge and scale across agencies; streamlining, automating, and standardising processes, and having more common systems,” he said.
The NZ$236 million in savings would come if agencies spending above the median for the various admin and support functions reduced their spending to the median level.
It was also not a net amount, so did not include the costs of moving to greater efficiencies or more streamlined processes.
The purpose of the report was not to set targets for savings, but to provide agency managers with "management information that improves transparency and scrutiny and help identify opportunities for improvement and savings," Treasury said.
8 Comments
"Key opportunities include leveraging knowledge and scale across agencies; streamlining, automating, and standardising processes, and having more common systems,” he said.
Why have they only just stumbled on this idea?...when $billions are being spent shouldn't the Govt already streamline, automate etc etc...oh that's right we had 9 years of Labour.
A few years ago I worked closely with a Govt dept and it was a disgrace what they got up to...before end of fiscal year there would be a mad rush to spend their budget on meaningless projects...just so they could prove to their CEO that they can budget accurately...absolute disgrace.
To put into context, this annual saving is less than one week of the governments current borrowing program.
And English only yesterday effectively saying he's doing nothing more than tinkering around the edges of middle class welfare.
The government is obese, he needs to start chopping entire departments, not paltry amounts like this (the public service have probably spent $300 million figuring out they could save this amount). Slashing on a department-wide scale will also free the private sector and allow productive individuals to set about the task of wealth creation again, which is the only solution for us all long term.
How about Vote Climate Change at $ 1 Billion pa
Whole Antarctic program
Sport & Recreation
Free Student Loans
Included Super - where a superannuitants partner of any age is eligible for NZ Super. Grab yourself a Russian bride on airpoints !
Guys - we are looking for $ 10 Billion pa and this will not come from the legendary Back Office
Jb - just suggesting dropping the things you don't like, is not a mature approach.
We happen to have become the biggest species, by biomass, on the planet. That - by default, pun intended - means that responsibility for it's continuance lies with us, and nobody/nothing but us.
Denial, and/or ignorance, are inappropriate choices in such a situation. Sure, the Carbon Charge is an approach (we are in Russian-roulette territory with the planet now - all approaches have to be precautionary - any one can get us) which probably won't do enough in real terms, but it's the best move so far. And, whatever we do, will 'cost', in the terms you probably understand 'cost' to mean.
Interesting that you suggest not running the Antarctic programme, whilst climate denying. That is dangerously close to choosing to be uninformed - choosing to be ignorant. I'd be pretty unimpressed with myself if I advocated that approach.
Sure, we're headed for debt, jointly and severally, but it's to do with running into the Limits to Growth, and those were signalled 40 years ago. Caveat emptor.
Or in your case, maybe it's Caveat repulsa.
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