With big agencies like Ministry of Social Development hiring 3000 new staff and Corrections recruiting 2200 in the past year, the Government needs to better understand its fast-growing $5 billion workforce.
More than 60,000 public servants across 36 core government agencies will partake in a Census specifically for the public sector beginning in May.
Public Service Commission deputy commissioner Hannah Cameron said questions would focus on diversity, inclusion, gender pay parity and wellbeing at work, a unified Public Service, and strengthening Māori-Crown relationships.
“While we already collect information about public servants through administrative or operational systems, there are gaps,” Cameron said.
“The Census data will help fill a number of those gaps and give us more knowledge and information about the Public Service workforce.”
Public service workers will have from May 11 until June 4 to complete the 20 minute questionnaire and Census data would be released in September.
Staff would be asked about what attracted them to the public service sector, their understanding of their responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi, why they had stayed in their role, and ways to make workplaces more diverse and inclusive.
Te Kawa Mataaho (Public Service Commission) plans to hold a Census every two years.
According to the commission’s annual report, the total base salary spend increased by nearly 13 percent to $4.8 billion in the year to June 2020, compared to the previous year.
The number of public servants in the core government departments increased by 8.6 percent to 57,149 in the year to June 2020. This number is thought to have increased since June 2020, as a number of departments recruited more people to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.
When the annual report was released in December, Public Service Commissioner, Peter Hughes said key drivers of this growth were an increase in investment to implement Covid-19 priorities, strong population growth and the two Royal Commissions of Inquiry and the mycoplasma bovis biosecurity incursion.
According to Te Kawa Mataaho's annual report as at June 2020, the children’s welfare, employment and justice and corrections departments along with MSD had the highest increases in new jobs.
Then in the year to April 2021, the Ministry of Social Development's 3000 new hires bumped up its total number of staff to about 9000. The actual increase was 1500 as some staff that had left were replaced. The department had been in charge of administering the wage subsidy scheme last year.
The majority of staff were hired to bolster service centre, contact centre and processing roles, a spokesperson for the ministry said. New IT roles had also been in demand at the ministry.
The Department of Corrections also had a high number of new recruits, with 2204 new hires between March 2019 and April this month. The department had 11,200 staff currently, up from 9803 last year.
More than 60 percent of people hired over the past year went into frontline roles, a Corrections spokesperson said.
About half of those hired by MSD were on fixed term contracts and half of new hires by Corrections were permanent roles. Both departments said most of its hires were in Wellington.
Oranga Tamariki has hired more than 300 new staff since March 2020.
The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Ministry of Justice were unable to provide recent figures, but each hired at least 500 people in the year to June 2020.
Treasury’s annual report showed there was a $2 billion increase in salaries and wages, but this included core departments and other crown entities and state-owned enterprises including universities, Air New Zealand and energy companies.
According to 36 core departments annual reports in the 12 months to June 2020, MSD spent $531m on base wages and salaries, compared to $465m the previous financial year and $451m in the 2017/2018 year.
MBIE’s annual report showed the department spent $450m on wages and salaries in the year to June 2020, up 21 percent on $370m the previous year, more than double the spend increase from 2018 to 2019.
Oranga Tamariki’s annual report showed base salary and wages spend increased by about 17 per cent to $396m in the year to 2020 compared to the same time the previous year.
The average annual salary in the Public Service in 2020 was $84,500, up from $81,300 2019.
Recruitment agency Frog Recruitment hired contact tracers for the Government last year when Covid hit our shores. The Government made up about half of its business.
The recruitment agency helped departments like MBIE and the Ministry of Health hire contact tracers at the start of last year who were earning $34 an hour.
Its managing director Shannon Barlow said most of the new roles it recruited last year were fixed term or full time, to reduce recruitment costs associated with hiring contractors.
She said last year a number of roles were seconded to other departments that needed greater support, specifically roles to support managed isolation and quarantine facilities.
But this year, Barlow said government departments were mostly hiring policy advisors and business analysts, roles that had salaries of about $110,000 to $130,000.
She said these roles focused on Covid-19 recovery and were in demand across all departments.
The recent announcement about amalgamating the district health boards “blindsided” some crown entities and recruiters associated with DHBs, she said.
However, Barlow said there would likely be new roles created by the health shakeup but also redeployment of roles currently within DHBs into new areas.
