It’s been a busy few weeks in the public sector. The long-rumoured mergers finally got announced. The National Library and Archives New Zealand will move into the Department of Internal Affairs( DIA). The Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (MORST) and the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology (FORST) will merge. The Food Safety Authority goes back to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), a mere three years after the government decided it was essential it be a standalone agency. No wonder public servants are cynical about the constant shifts of organisations.
The most difficult set of mergers to understand is the DIA grouping. The Cabinet paper is woefully short of argument. Some vague talk of digitalisation (which both National Library and Archives have been addressing strongly in recent years) and even more vague talk about “future proofing” doesn’t make for a coherent reason to take the axe to two agencies which the paper itself refers to as “well regarded and successful institutions”. Notable was the statement that the National Librarian did not agree with the merger with DIA. Presumably her disagreement was considerable, since it is noted in the Cabinet paper.
Most noticeably absent is any analysis of what this will mean for DIA. It’s currently an agency of about 1600 staff and will grow by over 500 when the mergers happen. Presumably the logic of amalgamation is to obtain structural efficiencies – merge the corporate office functions, HR, finance, policy, planning, communications and the like – otherwise why bother? So is the next stage a major restructure within DIA? The paper is silent on that but I bet DIA staff are wondering what it all means for them.
What we do know is that this set of mergers is taste of things to come. The government has finally acknowledged that further mergers are on the way. John Key’s promise to the PSA, pre-election, that he would not be overseeing a restructure of the public sector is ringing very hollow
