Key confirms public service mergers likely

Some public service mergers were likely to go ahead with resulting job losses, Prime Minister John Key said today.

The Dominion Post has reported that mergers were planned in the Internal Affairs, Research, Science and Technology, and the Agriculture and Forestry Ministries.

The paper said the mergers were understood to include rolling the National Library and Archives New Zealand into the Internal Affairs Department, merging the Food Safety Authority with MAF, and amalgamating the Foundation for Science, Research and Technology with the ministry of the same name.

The paper said consideration was being given to amalgamating Women's Affairs into either the Social Development Ministry or the Labour Department.

Mr Key told TVNZ's Breakfast programme that the issue was not on today's Cabinet agenda: "But ministers will be looking at that... some time this week."

Mr Key said there were going to be fewer jobs in some areas.

"It's not just sacking people, what you want to do is deliver efficiency," he said.

"We have more ministries than most other countries. In my view you can merge them, part of it is cost saving and part of it is about efficiency."

Labour Party state services spokesman Grant Robertson said at the weekend that mergers would be a breach of National's pre-election promise in September 2008 that "a new National government is not going to radically reorganise the structure of the public sector".

Mr Robertson said the mergers amounted to radical reorganisation which would be costly and distract workers and there were fears that other public service departments were in line for similar treatment.

- NZPA