Collins on Public Sector

An excellent speech by new Public Services Minister Judith Collins to public sector CEOs. Some extracts:

In the six years from 2017 to 2023, the number of people employed in the core public service* grew 34 percent, to 63,117 full-time equivalent employees. Total salary costs for this core public service workforce grew a staggering 72 percent, to about $6.1 billion a year, over the same period.

We simply do not have sufficient taxpayers to support that kind of growth. We do not have sufficient economic growth to support that level of public spending.

Staggering – a 72% increase in public sector salary costs.

Keeping it simple is also being efficient and respectful with the use of taxpayers’ money. Taxpayers trust us to use their resources wisely, and we can not, in the fog of daily pressures and challenges, lose sight of that.

Here’s a simple question I would urge you and your staff to ask themselves: if this was my money, would I spend it this way? This is the simple question that I ask myself when I am making funding decisions. It’s what I need you to do and to enforce.

Think of the sharemilker up at the crack of dawn every day whatever the weather. Think of the aged care worker doing their best to give our elderly the care and respect they deserve in their twilight years. Think of the bus driver. The taxi driver. The truck driver.

All these people want – and deserve – to know that their money is being spent in a way that delivers the services they need in the best way possible. They want results. They don’t want flow charts, frameworks, roadmaps, or bubble diagrams.

Plain speaking.

Coming back into government, it seems to me that you are getting weighed down with things that don’t have much to do with your core responsibilities and where everything becomes a priority.

Your core role is to serve the government of the day and focus on the basics, and the Act should reflect this.

Less DEI!

And the language you use needs to be fit for the person who is your customer. As a lawyer in private practice, I learned to explain legal terminology in everyday language.

If I talked to customers about the ‘mens rea’ and the ‘actus reus’ required for an offence to have been committed, I would have shown them I know some ‘legal’ Latin, and they might have been impressed. But really, I would just be showing them that I did not understand the first rule of communication -which is to be understood.

You and your staff need to think about your customers. When you are talking to or writing to your customers, think how it sounds to them.

Is it gobbledygook?

Is it a word salad?

Is it arrogant and lacking in empathy?

Is it inherently distancing you from the people who are paying your salary?

My suggestion is to leave the acronyms at the door.

Keep your superior language skills for those who will appreciate them.

Be appropriate. And remember… it’s no use if you can understand you, but your audience can not. Speak to people as you would like to be spoken to and show respect. And, no matter what, be genuine.

Implicit in this is use the language the public are most likely to understand – English. That doesn’t mean never use te reo – it just means never use it exclusively without English also. 18 months ago the Reserve Bank did a press release which said:

Today Te Tai Ōhanga, Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga and Te Pūtea Matua are publishing a joint paper that provides an assessment of the key drivers of rents in New Zealand.

I doubt 1% of New Zealanders would know who the hell they are referring to, without using Google. You should not be forcing 99% of the population to use a translator just to understand a press release.

I’d like to see the public service embrace the potential of AI.

I look forward to seeing a centralised, AI-powered data platform that enables real-time sharing of insights and collaboration between agencies like health, education and housing. It will be able to identify connections that may not be immediately obvious.

Excellent idea.

As the Prime Minister has made clear, a culture of saying No is not acceptable. Your challenge is to inspire your staff, your team, to say “Yes”.

Yes to the licence.

Yes to the permit.

Yes to considering trialling AI tutors for kids.

Yes to delivering a government app that provides the sort of service that the commercial world delivers.

Yes to allowing NZ businesses to innovate and be flexible.