Bureaucracy bloat continues – managers growing three times as fast as frontline staff

The Taxpayers' Union is reiterating it's earlier calls for the need to slash the size of the Public Service following newly released workforce data from the Public Service Commission showing the number of public servants at its highest ever number and managers growing at three times the rate of frontline staff.

In the past year, the number of managers grew by 5.4%, while the number of social, health and education workers grew only marginally by 1.9%.

Responding to the release of this data, Taxpayers' Union Head of Campaigns, Callum Purves, said:

"These figures demonstrate that pouring more money into failing public services simply will not work when there is no accountability for how that money is spent or what outcomes are delivered for it.

"The eye-watering levels of growth in the public service, almost 16,000 since 2017, are a disgrace and an insult to the millions of taxpayers who work tirelessly each day only to see their money wasted away on backroom managers while core services crumble.

"While the blame for this growth sits squarely with the outgoing Government, if the incoming one does not take immediate action to reverse this growth and improve delivery then things will only continue to get worse. For the sake of our future, it is vital that National ensures its promises to cut wasteful spending were not hollow words and they must go even further. We simply can't afford another three years of the failed experiment of big, wasteful government."