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Penny Simmonds: Vocational Education Minister on Treasury warning government about Te Pukenga de-merger · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Turns out Treasury warned the government that breaking up to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Pukinger could leave polytechs worse off. Documents released to news
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Talks would Be say the changes may not even fix
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the financial problems that they had before the merger to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: begin with. Penny Simmons as the Vocational Education Minister joins
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: us now Minister, good morning.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Ryan.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Did you see these documents?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, of course I saw them. Yes, But we
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: had a range of advice from Treasury over a number
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: of months, and more recent advice than what they gave
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: us in March as well.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: What did the more recent advice say, Look.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Treasury Is concern, of course, is whether the sort of
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: work that we've been doing, the financial work we've been
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: doing over the last eighteen months with financial advisors, with
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: each polytechnic getting their pathway to viability, whether the polytechnics
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: would be able to undertake that. That's why we pushed
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: the decisions out right till July, to make sure that
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: we could see they were making progress on those pathways
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: to viability. So if we did nothing, Treasury would be
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: quite right, there'd be quite a high level of risk.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: But we haven't done nothing. We've spent eighteen months, as
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I said, with financial advisors working with each individual polytechnique,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: getting rid of programs that aren't viable, getting rid of
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: access at staffing levels, reducing unnecessary expenditure, and bringing discipline
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: back to and a business like operation back to the polytechnic.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So that work that we've been doing, as well as
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: identifying over one hundred million dollars worth of unused or
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: underused assets that need to be sold as well and
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: sourcing the additional twenty million that we reprioritize from back
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: office TC to support some of the unviable strategic provision
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: that we need in certain geographic regions, but also that
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: we need for specific delivery and for exams, pul forestry
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and the primary sector. So we've done a lot of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: work to make sure that the polytechnics are and the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: best possible financial state to stand up.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So we won still got.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: A lot to do.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: We won't need to subsidize any of them.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: We've still got a lot of work to do on
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: how much that aren't stood up.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: How much well I look for because the contingency is
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty odd million.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Right, one hundred and fifty seven. No, we're not anticipating
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: having to go beyond that. We're hoping we won't have
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to use all of that.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's say we use one hundred and fifty seven
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: million of contingency. That's a lot of money. Will these
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: polytechs be in a better financial position after we've spent
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that money than they would before we spent it.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, they will because we've done all this work. And
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: remember that Taipukingha had said they needed nearly another billion
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: dollars over the next ten years to be operational. So
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: what about.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: This thing the Greens are saying that they're disestablishing some
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of them in person teaching, including cutting some programs. This
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: is a Northland around forestry and horticulture, is that true.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's the work that we're putting the twenty million into
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: areas that we need to keep face to face in
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: areas like the far North and the East Coast where
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: there are a high number of young people not in
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: educational employment.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So you won't cut There'll be a guarantee you won't
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: cut in person teaching of horticulture and forestry in the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: North and in.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: The East if the numbers are there to do it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: But we're not going to subsidize courses that have got
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: two or three people in them. That just doesn't make sense.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So if there are numbers, if there's demand for the courses,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and they're not viable because of the nature of the delivery,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: then that's what the Strategic Fund is for.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Penny. Appreciate your time, Penny Simmons, the Vocational Education Ministry.
• 3:51
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• 3:54
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• 3:58
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