Willis shrugs off Treasury advice about DoC cuts

How to understand Treasury’s Budget papers on cuts to the Department of Conservation’s budget?
The Government has released documents from the lead-up to May’s Budget, which seemingly provide a jarring juxtaposition to the Government’s promise its public service cuts won’t affect the front line.
The department manages a third of the country, and indigenous species that are endangered or at risk of extinction, including 74 percent of terrestrial birds. Its Government-funded operational budget dropped to $675 million this financial year, from $723m.
On February 29, Treasury provided Finance Minister Nicola Willis talking points before a meeting on March 5 with her National Party colleague Conservation Minister Tama Potaka to discuss how the DoC was managing cost pressures and its financial sustainability review.
“A reduction to the [savings] target is not possible given the fiscal environment,” the talking points state. “I understand that as DoC is an operational agency, you may need to make trade-offs which impact frontline services, but I appreciate your efforts to limit frontline impacts across the baseline reduction exercise.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Willis have repeatedly said, especially pre-election when they were in opposition, frontline services would not be affected by agency budget cuts – that the cuts were aimed at non-critical, back-office roles.
Treasury noted a budget reduction for DoC of $45 million over four years – involving contractors, consultants and back-office functions. The programmes were deemed “low value and low priority”.
“However, it also includes frontline-enabling roles and functions. Reducing enabling functions may have unintended consequences through shifting the administrative burden, planning and management of conservation activities onto frontline staff, reducing the available time for core conservation activities.”
Background information to Willis, provided by Treasury, said DoC was progressing a financial sustainability review to understand its costs, responsibilities, and priorities. “On its current trajectory, it does not appear likely that DoC can deliver all its present responsibilities, let alone improve outputs and outcomes.”
(Potaka told a select committee in June some endangered native species may have to go extinct because it’s too expensive to save them all.)
More pre-Budget advice on DoC’s cuts landed on Willis’ desk on April 29, in a Cabinet paper. The figure of $45m hadn’t changed.
The two biggest areas hit were the “management of natural heritage” (for maintaining, restoring and protecting ecosystems, habitats and species), and “management of recreational opportunities” (for the maintenance and management of recreational facilities and services), which made annual savings of $6m and $3.8m, respectively.
Treasury included an additional note which read: “Reducing enabling functions may have a corresponding impact on frontline service delivery as these functions will be reallocated from the back-office to frontline.”
This gels with advice DoC provided to Potaka on February 9, which was released to the Green Party under official information laws.
Potaka was told: “There is a risk from this savings package of increased workload for frontline FTE who will need to pick up more administration work as a result of reduction in centrally provided administration support (business services), and a reduction in the operations planning team who support planning and scheduling, as well as data management.”
DoC’s risk assessment was: “These savings will have impacts on frontline service delivery and conservation outcomes.
Initially, Willis told Newsroom she indicated in early March that DoC’s savings initiative needed to be scaled back to protect frontline services. 
“I was subsequently given assurance from Treasury that the conservation savings initiatives would not directly impact DoC’s frontline services before I finalised the DoC Budget package.”
We asked further questions, considering the April 29 advice involved a quantum of savings that hadn’t changed.
Willis’s office says: “Throughout the Budget process, the Minister sought assurances and received them from Treasury that any potential impacts had been reduced. Initiatives were progressed on that basis.
“The April 29 Cabinet paper notes there may be an indirect impact to DoC to make Cabinet aware of a potential outcome. However, the Budget did not directly reduce DoC’s frontline services.”
(The distinction about “directly” reducing frontline services doesn’t preclude frontline staff having to do supposedly back-office work.)
Talking points are not statements made by the minister, her office clarified. “The Minister in that meeting [on March 5] sought further assurance that Minister Potaka believed the savings could be delivered without impacting the DoC front line. Initiatives, again, were progressed on that basis.”
The wider context is public service cuts of 6529 roles, according to RNZ, including 124 at DoC.
Potaka said on Tuesday: “None of the disestablished roles are frontline ranger positions.”
(Jobs were also cut on the Chatham Islands.)
The 6.5 percent mandated reduction in DoC’s budget came on top of a 21 percent decrease in time-limited programmes, such as $13.3m saved by cancelling funding for the Jobs for Nature programme.
Treasury’s director of growth and public services Vicki Plater says it has no record of verbal advice provided to Willis or her office after April 29. 
The DoC savings initiative was focused on back-office savings, such as reductions in organisational support and some monitoring functions. “It did not include any savings that would be achieved from reductions in frontline staff.”
Treasury’s view was the potential impacts on frontline staff would be indirect. “The Cabinet paper could have been better worded to make it more explicit.”
Opposition political parties and unions don’t accept Willis’ explanation.
Labour’s conservation spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan says it’s terrible Willis was warned of the potential impact of budget cuts on DoC. “It looks like she was looking to Tama Potaka for his belief that there wouldn’t be an impact at the front line, and she’s just decided that that’s what she wants to hear.”
Cuts affecting frontline services flies in the face of previous comments from Willis and Luxon, Radhakrishnan says.
“As you reduce back-end functions that just means that those on the front lines are loaded up even more and will be able to do less. We’re seeing cuts to things like technical expertise – the evidence base that those on the front lines require in order to either control predators or to actually protect species. All of it’s going to have an impact.”
The Government’s priorities are skewed, she says, prioritising the economy over environmental concerns.
(Would Labour restore DoC’s budget? Radhakrishnan doesn’t make promises this far out from a general election, but points to Labour’s track record of increasing DoC funding, and the establishment of Jobs for Nature – which happened when the Green Party’s Eugenie Sage was minister.)
Green Party environment spokesperson Lan Pham says the Government cuts are “dismantling” environmental agencies such as DoC, the Ministry for the Environment, and the Climate Change Commission, and science capability Crown research institutes such as GNS Science and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.
“Ministers at the moment seemingly are responding by pointing the finger at each other,” Pham says. “They’re entirely missing that bigger picture that they are cutting $617 million over the next four years from ‘vote environment’.”
(Vote environment is an umbrella term for Budget appropriations within the Government’s environment sector, administered by the Ministry for the Environment, or MfE. Savings announced this year included ending funding for the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, and reducing the scale of investigation and remediation of contaminated sites.)
PSA national secretary Duane Leo says the Government has been misleading the public that its “savage” cuts across the public sector, including DOC, won’t affect the front line.  
“The Government is prepared to sacrifice services, like safeguarding our conservation estate, the jewel in our tourism crown, so it can afford tax cuts for landlords, big tobacco and higher income earners. It’s a shameful priority.”
Penny Simmonds, the Environment Minister, says MfE’s baseline funding had nearly tripled in six years, and, even before last year’s general election, its funding was expected to start decreasing.
In the last year, MfE has reviewed its operating model, introduced a new structure, and reduced the size of its leadership team by more than 20 percent. Recruitment controls have been implemented, and most new staff are on fixed-term contracts.
“Funding continues to be available so the ministry can provide policy advice and implementation on fresh water, waste, [Resource Management Act] reform and other key areas; provide evidence, data reporting on the state of the environment; and meet Crown commitments under the Treaty of Waitangi.”
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says how public sector agencies and Crown entities chose to achieve “baseline savings targets” were operational decisions.
“We want to ensure New Zealanders receive maximum value for government spending, which is why we have focused on solutions that benefit more than just the climate, but also the economy.”
A Budget 2024 vote conservation document labelled key messages and Q&A, released to the Green Party under official information laws, said: “There are no Department of Conservation savings initiatives which directly reduce frontline ranger positions. However, proposed position savings are largely from frontline-enabling roles, which may have indirect impacts on frontline services.”
Support functions affected by DoC cutbacks include monitoring, Predator Free 2050, and IT support from contractors. An apprentice ranger programme for students who whakapapa Māori will be closed. Resource Management Act advocacy will also be reduced. “This will reduce conservation interventions and legal processes related to resource management.”
Potaka has ordered DoC to generate new revenue and “recalibrate” costs.
The international visitor levy, half of which goes to conservation, will increase from $35 to $100 from next month. There are noises about charging foreigners for visiting national parks. Prices have been hiked for Great Walks and high-demand huts, campsites and cottages.
DoC’s work on high-value conservation outcomes needs to be targeted, the minister has said.
The department’s financial sustainability review, from a year ago, warned of a $70m-plus funding gap over the next four years. Some believe this to be an understatement.