19 April 2013

PSA urges DOC to stop look and listen over restructuring

The Public Service Association is urging the Department of Conservation to stop, look and listen over its latest restructuring plan which staff believe will seriously impact on regional frontline operations.

DOC is currently finalising a restructuring proposal which will see 140 jobs cut around the country. The proposal is part of a shift in organisational focus and in a bid to make up to $9 million dollars in savings from on-going government funding cuts to its operational budget.

The PSA represents more than 1400 DOC staff and has made a comprehensive submission on the review plan.

“The overwhelming message coming through is that there is a lot of disquiet about the direction of the restructure and concern that the balance of DOC’s work is being tipped too much towards the pursuit of commercial partnerships at the expense of frontline jobs and services,” says PSA National Secretary Brenda Pilott.

“We’re seeing hands-on specialist and administration jobs going from the regions, while more resource is being put into a new partnership arm with an additional 20-30 roles being created at head office level to support a more commercially-driven focus.”

Brenda Pilott says it’s about priorities and the risk is that those working in the commercial partnership area will be more highly paid and valued than those working at the operational sharp end.

“Staff say fewer resources in each region will make it harder for DOC to deliver on the level of environmental protection in the future that it is presently doing and has done in the past.”

As a result the PSA is calling for DOC to reconsider the removal of programme manager positions saying they form the cornerstone of DOC’s regional operations. It also wants to see that the new positions designated for National Office diverted back to the regions and areas.

“Our members are aware that DOC is working under significant government funding constraints but they believe there is nothing in the review plan to show that the new structure will actually address the biodiversity decline in New Zealand and will instead remove experience and capacity and distract it from its frontline priorities,” Brenda Pilott says.

“DOC has undertaken to consider all the hundreds of submissions it has received from staff on the restructuring proposal and we hope it will listen to the concerns being raised as it makes its final decisions. As the Auditor General said in her report on DOC last year, staff are vital to its future success.”

ENDS

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