Penny Nelson, the Department of Conservation’s director-general, is fond of quotes.
In May 2022, her foreword to a document explaining decisions on the first phase of the department’s restructure read: “Ki te kotahi te kākaho ka whati, ki te kapūia e kore e whati.
“A single strand is vulnerable, but a unified collective of strands is unbreakable.”
Nelson had only been in the job six months, and walked into a budget crisis worsened by Covid-19 disruptions.
DoC staff took huge interest in the restructure – dubbed the “organisational reset” – with more than 600 survey responses, and more than 100 emailed submissions.
“I want to acknowledge that change can be hard, regardless of whether your position is affected,” Nelson said in her decision document.
This first phase of the restructure would revamp the senior leadership team, with the aim of having a more logical structure, and clearer accountability.
Nelson: “Our organisational reset will help us deliver on our strategy so that we get great results for conservation for our precious and unique ecosystems and species.”
The organisational reset’s second phase – still in the wings at that point – would cover the rest of the organisation, except frontline positions in the operations group.
The costs – and job cuts – involved in this restructure are now clear.
Figures provided to Parliament’s environment select committee this past month, as part of the department’s annual review show DoC spent $2.85 million on restructuring in the 2022/23 financial year.
More than $2.6m was spent on 36 redundancies, with another $235,000 paid to contractors and consultants for human resources, training and support services.
Six payments cost the department more than $100,000 each.
(In 2021/22, DoC spent $559,000 on nine redundancies.)
“The seniority of exiting staff, as well as their tenure and any grandparented terms and conditions, has an impact on the size of any redundancy, severance, or other termination package,” the department told the select committee.
“In relation to the organisation reset, 13 directors, seven managers, and 11 staff were made redundant and this overall cohort included five people with a significant length of service.”
On March 7, Nelson told the environment select committee her department was spread too thin.
This financial year, it’s expected to spend $880m to look after a third of the country.
“We can’t do everything, everywhere,” Nelson reportedly said. “We need to get smarter and prioritise.”
DoC is caught by the new Government’s public sector cuts; expected to trim its budget by 6.5 percent.
“One option is we keep doing what we’re doing,” Nelson said. “Another is we do less, another is that we try and get greater conservation outcomes.”
Since taking over from Lou Sanson in November 2021, the director-general has been on a cost-cutting and restructuring drive.
DoC’s struggle to maintain the country’s ageing and neglected huts, tracks and structures has forced it to consider closures and divestments.
The department’s October 2022 decision document for the organisational reset’s second phase – released to Newsroom under the Official Information Act – said: “There is no denying that our budgets have been a challenge. We had to reduce budgets by $28m last year and this year – and every single part of the business has been impacted.
“We have a lot of work to do on our financial strategy so that we can make a strong case for further investment in conservation. The senior leadership team is working on this.”
Its dire financial situation was underlined to new Conservation Minister Tama Potaka in a briefing made public in February.
The briefing, from November this past year, said an initial financial sustainability review found the size and scale of DoC was “unaffordable on current baselines”, and “significantly more (and more cost-effective)” conservation work was needed to meet its goals.
Ministers would need to make strategic choices to match DoC’s funding to the Government’s objectives, the briefing said.
Information provided to the environment select committee this past month gave an insight into the department’s organisational reset, and what it’s doing to arrest high staff turnover.
The first phase of the restructure disestablished seven deputy director-general positions, 27 director positions and six personal assistant positions, while creating six new deputy director-general positions, 19 new chief officer, director, programme director or kaihautū positions and six new executive assistant positions.
This was said to be cost neutral.
The second phase, meanwhile, disestablished 71 roles, and scrapped 56 vacant positions, while creating 96 new roles.
“Many of these new roles were in the national programmes and regulatory services, and biodiversity, heritage and visitors groups,” answers to the select committee said.
(The second phase decision document said: “After implementing this structure we will have 16 fewer management roles than when the reset started.”)
As the organisational reset kicked in staff turnover rose – from 10.7 percent (218 staff) in 2020/21, to 15.8 percent (346) the following year, and 15.3 percent (338) in 2022/23. Just under a year ago, staff on collective agreement through the Public Service Association got pay hikes, and it DoC is “implementing some new approaches to starting salaries”.
“In the short term whilst turnover remains high, there may be impacts around staff engagement and wellbeing, as well as disruption to work and loss of knowledge and/or expertise,” the department told the select committee.
“In the medium-longer term the department expects to see greater alignment and enablement of core conservation and high priority work through its integrated strategy and the reset of functions around it that occurred in 2022.”
The staff restructure was preceded by a new “integrated strategy”, which had four outcomes:
- Thriving ecosystems and species;
- Improved public conservation land and waters;
- Stronger connections between nature, heritage, and people;
- Being a great organisation where people can grow and thrive.
As at June 30, DoC had 3044 full-time equivalent positions, but that included 489 vacancies, “around 300 of which are not funded”. The department’s cap on full-time positions, removed in 2017/18, set a ceiling of 2217 jobs.
Permanent and fixed-term positions were 2554 in 2022/23, with 53 percent considered frontline. Compare that to four years prior, when frontline roles were 57 percent of the 2283 roles.
Operational and capital spending on contractors and consultants increased from $14.3m in 2018/19 to $35.6m in 2022/23.
Figures to the select committee show how DoC has gained from the country’s tourism recovery.
User charges revenue in 2022/23 increased more than $4m from the previous financial year, to $19.9m, most of which came from hut and camping fees on the Great Walks.
Meanwhile, Crown user charges – which includes concession incoming from tourist guiding, aircraft landing fees and income from ski areas – also increased, from $9.4m to $20.6m.
DoC is now 37 years old, having been created on April 1, 1987. Nelson is determined to re-shape it.
Two years ago, in the organisational reset consultation document, the director-general said the department’s structure “has developed in a piecemeal way over time and now, accountabilities are confused and there’s no clear logic to how we are organised”.
Her comments started with the quote: “He rā ki runga, he wai ki raro, he rākau ki waenganui;
“For a tree to grow, it requires the sun and water working in unison.”
The logical place for DOC to reduce its spending is its questionable widespread use of non selective toxins. DOC’s spending in this area dwarfs the amount spent on all other functions DOC is charged with carrying out.
DOC is still likely multiplying errors when it works out its costs. That’s the biggest risk – it doesn’t show anyone how its working out that its underfunded.
How many restructures has doc had. What experience lost under the heading redundancies? What has been the effect on our environment? Death by a thousand cuts