As they pointed out yesterday, Government spending has grown from $80.6 billion a year in 2017 to $137 billion in 2023. New Zealanders, including Labour voters, according to ACT’s polling, believe that public services are far worse now than they were a few years ago, and I think we’d agree with that, wouldn't we?
ACT says there's a growing disconnect between what the Government considers priorities and good performance, and the quality of services the public experiences. So, looking at the expensive and poorly thought out pet projects like restructuring the health or polytech systems, or the light rail, they are treated as goals in and of themselves.
Ministers are so focused on getting their pet projects through that they lose sight of whether it's actually going to improve New Zealander’s lives. And ACT says that the problem is that performance reporting of public services is haphazard. Measures can be cherry picked. Results can be reported in a way that isn't coherent, and it's difficult or nigh impossible to track trends over time.
So you don't know whether a policy or a plan is delivering because they don't track it. And we've seen that.
I've had interviews with public officials on this show who haven't had a clue how to measure the success of a policy that is costing you and I millions and millions of dollars a day.
So really at first reading, doesn't this make sense?
We've been demanding to know the results of so many of the ideologically driven projects that Labour has put in and they can't tell us. But for those who do work in business or have worked in the public sector, can a Government department, should a Government department be run like a widget factory? Is it even possible to do so?
There are so many competing priorities for our tax dollars right now, and over the next few years, that we simply cannot afford to throw good money after bad. I want to know if these projects are working. If they're not, we get rid of them, we try something else.
But are there any pitfalls in requiring the public service to perform professionally.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB where this article was sourced
Ministers are so focused on getting their pet projects through that they lose sight of whether it's actually going to improve New Zealander’s lives. And ACT says that the problem is that performance reporting of public services is haphazard. Measures can be cherry picked. Results can be reported in a way that isn't coherent, and it's difficult or nigh impossible to track trends over time.
So you don't know whether a policy or a plan is delivering because they don't track it. And we've seen that.
I've had interviews with public officials on this show who haven't had a clue how to measure the success of a policy that is costing you and I millions and millions of dollars a day.
So really at first reading, doesn't this make sense?
We've been demanding to know the results of so many of the ideologically driven projects that Labour has put in and they can't tell us. But for those who do work in business or have worked in the public sector, can a Government department, should a Government department be run like a widget factory? Is it even possible to do so?
There are so many competing priorities for our tax dollars right now, and over the next few years, that we simply cannot afford to throw good money after bad. I want to know if these projects are working. If they're not, we get rid of them, we try something else.
But are there any pitfalls in requiring the public service to perform professionally.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB where this article was sourced
2 comments:
One of the first things the Ardern Government did was remove the Better Public Services programme. This is the crux of why head numbers are up, but performance is down. It's time for a massive review of the public service with the objective of making them accountable again.
If only anyone in this government or the public sector could run a widget factory...or knew what one was, even.
They operate on a much higher plane, unencumbered by the drudgery of fiscal responsibility, net positive outcomes and optimising resources. Where waste and inefficiency are king and woke rules the meeting room.
When you're head's in the clouds listening to yet another karakia, or checking when your next Maori cultural brainwashing course is, or desperately trying to find the words "co-governance" in the Treaty, it's really hard to focus on the mundane issues that affect the plebs - like health, education, transport, crime, the cost of living, housing, that sort of thing.
I could go on but it's pointless, really. A bit like many of our government representatives and public service employees.
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