Coleman: Take staffing cap off, put thinking cap on

The Government's fudging of the numbers of public servants fools nobody and shows that their cap on public service numbers has failed miserably, says Labour's State Services Spokesperson, Maryan Street.

“State Services figures show there were 45,588 public servants on 31 December 2013, compared with 45,297 in December 2008 when Labour left office," she said.

“If the cap is the extent of National's ideas for the public service, then it has been exposed as a failed policy.

“National's rhetoric about a bloated bureaucracy has been well and truly pricked. They are bloating it even further.

“Jonathan Coleman needs to put his thinking cap on, not his ridiculous staffing cap. His deliberate fudging of the figures by trying to tell us that the 'core' public service has decreased in numbers is just laughable.

“National’s rhetoric when in opposition against the numbers of communications staff has also been exposed. There are just 1.8 fewer comms staff at the end of last year than there were six months earlier.

“Jonathan Coleman needs to stop delaying reports and disguising figures and just admit that there are certain numbers of staff needed to deliver good public services to New Zealanders. He needs to concentrate on delivering quality public services, not pretending there are fewer public servants than there are in order to reach a stupid arbitrary cap on numbers," Maryan Street says.

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