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Speaker 1: But the public service has been asked by the government

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Speaker 1: to figure out how they could make more cuts. Thousands

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Speaker 1: of workers have been asked in an internal census to

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Speaker 1: identify areas for further cost cutting across every government agency,

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Speaker 1: and the results are expected in July. So PSA Assistant

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Speaker 1: Secretary Flurfit Simon's joins me. Now, helloflur good morning. SO

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Speaker 1: Commissioner Brian Roach commissioned this. He's been very insistent that

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Speaker 1: the public service start to drive performance themselves. How open

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Speaker 1: is the service to this sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: A lot of people are very willing to share their

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Speaker 2: ideas about how the public service can be run better.

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Speaker 2: But it's hard to take this government seriously on this

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Speaker 2: given they imposed harsh and deep cuts without any consultation

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Speaker 2: of this nature with public servants. They had government departments

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Speaker 2: come up with proposals in compete isolation from what people

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Speaker 2: actually think who are doing the job. So it's really

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Speaker 2: hard to take them seriously. But also it's important to

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Speaker 2: remember this is a regular census. It happens every five years.

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Speaker 2: We don't think that it's going to be able to

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Speaker 2: deliver the kind of harsh cuts that the government's already

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Speaker 2: imposed in the future because there is just nothing more

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Speaker 2: to cut, all right.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying there's nothing more to.

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Speaker 2: Cut, that's well, the government has already dismissed hundreds of

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Speaker 2: public servants, including people like dog trainers and customs people

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Speaker 2: who work on the front line of stopping the digital

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Speaker 2: harm and exploitation that happens to children, people who try

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Speaker 2: and help intercept scams that often target the elderly. So

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Speaker 2: if the government is actually serious about investing in public

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Speaker 2: services that deliver to New Zealanders, it won't make further cuts.

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Speaker 2: Are there rooms for efficiencies? Absolutely? Do public servants have

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Speaker 2: good ideas about how to find them? Yes, they do,

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Speaker 2: and we really hope that the government will listen to

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Speaker 2: what public servants say. That not just through the survey,

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Speaker 2: through all sorts of interactions that including the union actually

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Speaker 2: does and we actually did ourselves prior to the round

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Speaker 2: of cuts surveys with public servants and came up with

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Speaker 2: a whole range of ways that the public service could

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Speaker 2: be more efficient that the government never listened to.

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Speaker 1: But this is why the census has happened, this is

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Speaker 1: why Brian Roach has asked for it. They're asking you

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Speaker 1: for the ideas and you've just said to me there

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Speaker 1: are no more places for cuts, and there is there's

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Speaker 1: a perception that the public servants are so reticent about

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Speaker 1: this and they don't want to provide better value for money.

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Speaker 2: No, the sensence happens every five years anyway. What I'm

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Speaker 2: saying is it asks a whole range of questions. For example,

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Speaker 2: it asks about the appetite for risk in a particular agency.

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Speaker 2: It asks for the workloads, how high are your workload?

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Speaker 2: Is it manageable? It asks a whole lot of questions

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Speaker 2: about working from home, are you paid fairly? But it's

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Speaker 2: not going to deliver the kind of roadmap for further

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Speaker 2: cuts that the government is looking for. There is no

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Speaker 2: room to cut further. It's been cut to the bone.

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Speaker 2: You are going to further undermine the services that New

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Speaker 2: Zealanders rely on if you make cuts to our cherish

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Speaker 2: important public service.

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Speaker 1: Well, you keep saying there's no room for cuts, and

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Speaker 1: you're making an assumption before you know. The results aren't

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Speaker 1: out until July, and you're already making that assumption.

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Speaker 2: Well, what I'll tell you is that there's already been

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Speaker 2: so significant a cut to the work that our public

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Speaker 2: servants do. We are unable to attract and retain people already.

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Speaker 2: This government is not going to find through this survey

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Speaker 2: a whole lot of ways that can cut more jobs

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Speaker 2: or save more money. What we actually need to see

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Speaker 2: is a commitment to the public service and more investment.

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Speaker 2: And this isn't That's not the purpose of the survey anyway.

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Speaker 1: One final question though, I don't know if you watched

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Speaker 1: Q and A yesterday and had the outgoing on. Woodsman

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Speaker 1: Peter Bouchier very critical of the public service, particularly health

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Speaker 1: and corrections, and he said they were talking about our

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Speaker 1: public servants dedicated to providing value for money.

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Speaker 2: New Zealand has a corruption free, high quality public service

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Speaker 2: that is renowned worldorldwide. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely?

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Speaker 2: Are we going to stand in the way of positive

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Speaker 2: improvement that makes the ability of public sements that deliver

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Speaker 2: their jobs. Well, no we're not. But yes, there's work

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Speaker 2: to do. But let's also value the people that do

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Speaker 2: this important work to blur.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today for Fitzimon's

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Speaker 1: PSA's Assistant secretary. For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks. There'd be from five am

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Speaker 1: weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,