Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Rob Campbell: Health NZ Chair contractor and consultant spending cuts

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Rob Campbell: Health NZ Chair contractor and consultant spending cuts · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: We got news today that nearly half of the government's
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  Speaker 1: contractors and consultancy spending cuts that we were harping on
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  Speaker 1: about last week will be coming from Health New Zealand alone.
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  Speaker 1: So that is about two hundred and four million dollars
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  Speaker 1: spent on contractors, consultants and locals. And it's raised the
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  Speaker 1: question why aren't we spending that employing full time staff
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  Speaker 1: and why do we end out spending so much money
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  Speaker 1: on consultants and health in the first place. So former
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  Speaker 1: Health New Zealand chair Rob Campbell joins in, Now, Hello Rob,
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  Speaker 1: So why do we have so many contractors and consultants
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  Speaker 1: and Health?
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  Speaker 2: Well, there was a degree of what I call learned
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  Speaker 2: helplessness in the management structures of Health and of some
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  Speaker 2: other parts of the public service, which developed over the years,
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  Speaker 2: partly my people harping on about the private sect always
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  Speaker 2: being best about things, but also partly just a crisis
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  Speaker 2: of confidence in the amount of money that was coming
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  Speaker 2: into Health and the difficulty they were having of finding
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  Speaker 2: answers to get a better outcome. So over time and
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  Speaker 2: agree with what again, learned helplessness developed. It's most unfortunately,
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  Speaker 2: it's good to see and that it is being reversed.
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  Speaker 2: If that's what this tells us. So I have no
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  Speaker 2: doubt that there was a lot of room to improve
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  Speaker 2: costs there and get those cost re erecor towards the
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  Speaker 2: frontline of health. But not all most caught, and not
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  Speaker 2: all consultants are the same. You look consultants and contractors together.
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  Speaker 2: That combines both big consultancy company charging millions and millions
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  Speaker 2: of dollars to do stuff at the public service should
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  Speaker 2: and is able to do itself with individual contractors, particularly
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  Speaker 2: it in places like that where that has simply become
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  Speaker 2: the way that people work. So I don't think it's
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  Speaker 2: helpful to lump those numbers to get on. It's helpful
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  Speaker 2: to the politicians who are claiming to have made savings,
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  Speaker 2: but whether it's really made the right savings in the
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  Speaker 2: right places will only time will tell.
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  Speaker 1: Thing with all this learned helplessness and what a beautiful
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  Speaker 1: phrase that is, rob if we cut all that out,
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  Speaker 1: can health survive?
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  Speaker 2: Look, it's only a very small part of health surviving
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  Speaker 2: actually the cost part of it and the redirection of
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  Speaker 2: those costs as part of it. But you know, you
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  Speaker 2: could cut out a whole lot of costs that were
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  Speaker 2: vital to health, and from outside in the reporting that
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  Speaker 2: we get, it's really impossible to tell. I think it's
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  Speaker 2: a mixture. I think some things that were clearly wasteful
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  Speaker 2: have been chopped. I think that, particularly in the IT area,
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  Speaker 2: some contractors and other advisors who have been cut are
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  Speaker 2: not a particularly good idea at all. But you know,
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  Speaker 2: you've got to start somewhere, and generally it's progress.
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  Speaker 1: And if we cut the learned helplessness, could that money
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  Speaker 1: that we save actually end up being prioritized for full
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  Speaker 1: time stuff and so there was no overall net saving.
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  Speaker 2: It could mean there's no overall net saving. I think
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  Speaker 2: that's the right way to be thinking about this. What
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  Speaker 2: we want is a bit of health service. So what
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  Speaker 2: we're whether there's a saving or not, it's not really
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  Speaker 2: the point. It's really whether that money is being redirected
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  Speaker 2: more purposefully than it was in the past. And as
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  Speaker 2: I say, it's very hard to tell from outside whether
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  Speaker 2: that is true or not. Some of the results suggest
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  Speaker 2: that it's not. I'm concerned that with a very narrow
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  Speaker 2: range of priorities being pushed on to front aura, it
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  Speaker 2: may well be that they're concentrating on those specific targets
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  Speaker 2: rather than do overall improvement in the machine, and that
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  Speaker 2: is the thing that we really need. Rob.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for once again waking up early for us
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  Speaker 1: as Rob Campbell, former Chair of Health New Zealand. For more,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: fam Earlily Edition with Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Listen live to news talks it be from five am weekdays,
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