Government bureaucracy bigger than ever while frontline special education workers are cut back

News today that public sector staff numbers are at their highest point since 2008 has infuriated Special Education specialist staff employed by the Ministry of Education, who say children with special needs are missing out because of the Government's cap on public service staffing.

The frontline staff* are employed directly by the ministry to support children with special needs in ECE and school, but the cap makes it almost impossible to replace staff who leave.

Special education staff say that since the cap was introduced in 2009, it has taken months or years to replace staff who resign or take parental leave, if permission was given at all. Staff who return after parental leave are under pressure to return fulltime because the cap is “per head” rather than “fulltime equivalent”. This meant that someone else could not be hired to fill the remaining hours.
The funding is sitting in the budget, but can't be spent on replacement staff because of the illogical cap.

A special education worker who can’t be named, said, “Here we are on the frontline, helping children and their schools, trying to cover the shortfall, but we are under a “back office” role cap because we work for the Ministry of Education. There may be more public servants in Wellington, but there aren't enough to meet the needs of children with special learning needs."

NZEI Te Riu Roa President Judith Nowotarski said the situation was ironic, as the bureaucratic problem had been caused by an attempt to cut down on bureaucracy.

“These workers are at the absolute frontline, helping kids who desperately need it. Staff are stretched, stressed and exhausted, and children are missing out on support or getting less service than is ideal. We implore the ministry to exclude these essential workers from the cap, so they can reach the children who need it,” she said.

“This government says special needs learners are priority learners, but in fact they are not being given priority in terms of funding or support.”

*Current figures were not immediately available from the Ministry of Education, but there were 1006 FTE special education workers and field staff employed by the ministry in 2009, working with 30,000 children. Roles include behaviour support, disabilities support, early intervention teachers, advisors, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and pschychologists.

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