Ministry launches change proposal

The proposal would see 303 fewer full time equivalent (FTE) roles at the Ministry by July 2025, reducing from 993 filled FTE roles today to 690 in the 2025/26 financial year.

This would be achieved by ending about 150 fixed term contracts by October 31 this year, and through voluntary and proposed redundancies of permanent employees - including a number of redundancies that would be delayed till the end of June 2025.

A total of 45 employees have already accepted offers of voluntary redundancy, and the Ministry is inviting further expressions of interest in this throughout the consultation and decision period.

“Prior to the change of government, after a period of rapid growth the Ministry’s budget was on track to decline by 26 percent over the next four years as time limited funding for waste, water and resource management programmes came to an end,” Ministry Chief Executive James Palmer said today.

“Throughout 2023 we took steps to prepare for that decline, instituting a hiring freeze last year, and employing a number of people on fixed term contracts. We also reviewed our operating model, finishing the year with a structure designed to make the Ministry more effective and efficient, with a smaller number of senior management roles.

“These steps have helped reduce the impact of the proposal on current permanent staff. Nevertheless, change like that proposed today will be hard on many of our people who have delivered high quality and specialised work, often at high pace, for both the current and previous governments – including through a challenging period of uncertainty about their own positions.

“My focus as we enter three weeks of consultation, is on ensuring our people feel they are being treated fairly, are well supported, and have access to clear information on which to base their next decisions. We will be listening carefully to what they have to say about the proposals and what they might suggest we do differently” James Palmer said.

• Consultation opens at 12pm today and runs till 12pm on June 26.
• The combined impact of Budget 2024 decisions and the Ministry’s already declining baseline is a reduction in its departmental baseline of 39 percent by 2027/28.
• The 2023/24 year was the Ministry’s projected peak, providing funding for up to 1230 FTEs, about 200 of which were associated with the previous government’s resource management reforms and were never filled due to recruitment controls. The proposal would see these budgeted FTEs reduce by 540 to 690 in 2025/26 with an interim reduction to 819 in 2024/25.