WELLINGTON (February 13): New Zealand’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has proposed creating an in-house consultancy hub to ease reliance on external consultants by the bureaucracy.
The National Party, which came to power late last year as part of a right wing Coalition Government, has set out plans to make public sector cost savings of at least 6.5 per cent.
The PSC said it would welcome the opportunity to discuss a range of possible interventions to meet this target including “an in-house consultancy hub that looks to deploy high-capability resources into major projects that could otherwise rely heavily on external consultants”.
Expenditure on contractors and consultants has risen to just over NZ$900 million ($A846 million) a year to June 2023. This was up from just shy of NZ$600 million ($A564 million) in 2018 and equates to 13.1 per cent of total public workforce spending.
National campaigned on cutting the spending on external contractors and consultants by NZ$400 million ($A376 million) a year.
However, officials in some Departments say reducing reliance on consultants would be particularly challenging in certain areas, such as digital, due to the specialist nature of and high industry demand for digital talent.
New Zealand’s main union for Public Servants, the Public Service Association, says public sector cuts targeting Departments and Agencies would have a long-term negative impact on the country “undermining the ability of the Government to implement evidence-based policies”.
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Denmark to boost defence spending
COPENHAGEN (February 10): Denmark’s Minister of Defence has asked his officials to prepare plans for increased military investments in the face of mounting threats from Russia.
In an interview with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, Troels Lund Poulsen said new intelligence indicated that Russia was rearming faster than expected and could be ready to attack a NATO country within three-to-five years.
"Russia will seek to test NATO's solidarity. This is new knowledge that is coming to the fore now," Mr Poulsen said.
He said while there was no direct threat against Denmark, the NATO alliance could face hybrid attacks in efforts to destabilise a member country.
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Ministers want more funds for public sector
BELFAST (February 10): Northern Ireland Ministers, back on the job after nearly two years of deadlock, have promised to seek more money from the United Kingdom Treasury to make a “fair and just” public sector pay settlement.
Newly-appointed Finance Minister, Caoimhe Archibald said she wanted pay negotiations to begin as soon as possible during which she would be seeking longer-term funding for wage rises.
Most Civil Service staff in the Province were awarded a flat-rate pay adjustment of just £552 ($A1068) last April, equivalent to an increase of less than one per cent for most officers.
Head of the Civil Service, Jayne Brady estimates £634 million ($A1227 million) is needed to maintain broad parity between Northern Ireland Civil Servants and those in England, Scotland and Wales.
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Bureaucrats fear new Trump Administration
WASHINGTON (February 13): With the near certainty that former United States President, Donald Trump will be the Republican Party’s nominee in the November Federal election, Public Servants are already running scared.
Towards the end of his Administration in 2020, Mr Trump authorised the creation of a new public sector classification, Schedule F, making it easier to hire and fire Federal employees in “policy-related” jobs. The plan was never implemented and cancelled by incoming President, Joe Biden.
However, Mr Trump has repeatedly advocated for the revival of Schedule F, and conservative activists have been working behind the scenes to enable its swift implementation at the start of the next Republican Administration, listing 50,000 current Federal workers who could be threatened with transfer to Schedule F and hence possible removal.
President of the American Federation of Government Employees, Everett Kelley said every Public Servant should vote for a President that is sensitive to the issues Federal employees face — “and that is President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris”.
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Union concerned over rising sickness
LONDON (February 9): The United Kingdom’s Public and Community Sector Union has urged the Government to pay more attention to rising sickness levels within the Civil Service
General Secretary of the union, Fran Heathcote said figures uncovered by the minority Liberal Democrat Party showed long-term sick leave within the bureaucracy had risen by 33 per cent in four years.
“There have been two large-scale studies into sickness in Whitehall and they have both revealed that the lower the grade of the employee, the higher their sick and death rates,” Ms Heathcote said.
“The studies also found a firm connection between the way work is organised and the subsequent health impacts, effectively saying much sickness absence is caused by work itself because of stress and other factors.”
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UK interest in German Federal system
BERLIN (February 10) Members of the United Kingdom’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee have visited Germany to discuss whether elements of that country’s Federal system of Government could be adopted in Britain.
Committee members held a roundtable discussion with the State Secretaries of a number of Germany’s Federal States, and met the Deputy Director General of the Federal Interior Ministry, as well as academics and representatives from Germany’s primary Civil Servants’ union.
In a statement, the committee said it was investigating governance of the Civil Service and studying the mechanisms and distribution of power within Germany’s Federal system.
Also present at the discussions were the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Germany, Jill Gallard and Deputy Ambassador, Kieran Drake.
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Fowl thieves pluck Cuba’s rations
HAVANA (February 11): Cuba’s State food distributor has been robbed of 133 tonnes of chicken meat destined to be rationed out to the nation’s impoverished population.
Police later said the 30 people had been charged with the heist after they sold the meat on the black market and used to proceeds to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners. If found guilty, they could face 20 years in jail.
Director of the Government food distributor, COPMAR, Rigoberto Mustelier said the quantity stolen was the equivalent of a month’s ration of chicken for a medium-sized Province at current distribution rates.
The amount of chicken available via the rationing system has fallen sharply in recent years as an economic crisis has brought scarcities of food, fuel and medicines.
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