June 5, 2022 3:00pm by David Farrar

Why does the Reserve Bank have a brand team?

Any limits to public sector waste? How can it possibly take a "small but busy team" to do this sort of stuff for a geeky wholesale-focused competitor-less govt agency?
A private entity competing aggressively for retail customers, sure. But this is the RB.https://t.co/vbmwt6fTAk pic.twitter.com/ZsgMf4xSSA
— Michael Reddell (@MHReddell) June 2, 2022

This is staggering. First the Reserve Bank decided it needed to be the Tane Mahuta of the financial system. They they decided they needed to be leading the debate on climate change. All this time they’ve let inflation shoot up to 6.9% and forecast to stay above 3% for years to come.

But now we find out that not only are they advertising for a brand and designer manager, but they have an entire brand and design team. Why the hell does a central bank need a brand team?

If once every say three to five years you want to do a brand refresh, then you can contract someone in for that. But this is just another example of the explosion in non critical public sector jobs.