P.S.A. warns Govt on ‘risk of shambles’

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 27

P.S.A. warns Govt on ‘risk of shambles’

By OLIVER RIDDELL in Wellington The Public- Service Association has questioned the Government’s actions in setting up an establishment board to oversee the formation of the proposed Land Development and Management Board. “I am extremely disturbed at the lack of co-ordination in the Government’s moves to reorganise the Public Service,’’ said the president of the P.S.A., Mr Colin Hicks. It had been known for some time that the Government intended to reshape a number of its departments but so far no detailed guidelines had been developed. This was

needed to set the principles on which different departments would be reorganised. The Government frequently had assured the P.S.A. that for the Land Development and Management Corporation and the Forestry Corporation, the boards the Government was setting up were advisory only, he said. The P.S.A. had been assured of consultation before final decisions were made. Now it appeared that the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, was suggesting these boards were there to set up the new corporations and not just to advise on how they could be reorganised, Mr Hicks said.

The Government did not seem to be telling its left hand what its right hand was doing — a recipe for a shambles. As each new announcement was made on State sector reorganisation it became clearer that the Government should have heeded the call of the P.S.A. last year for a moratorium on change. The Government should stop and talk sensibly with the P.S.A. about what it wanted to achieve and how it would achieve it, Mr Hicks said. New Zealand was on the verge of a shambles and the Government must recognise this and take stock of its programme before enormous damage was done to public assets.