Public sector cuts: 673 jobs to go at Government housing agency Kāinga Ora

Kāinga Ora's largest development in Northland, the 95-home Kauika Rd project. The housing agency's chief executive Matt Crockett said its growth was not financially sustainable. He admitted announcing the job cuts was "a difficult day" . Photo / Denise Piper

Government landlord and developer Kāinga Ora announced it would shed 673 roles today, “predominantly in corporate, back-office and other support functions”.

Of those roles, 195 are currently vacant, taking the total reduction to 478 roles.

Kāinga Ora chief executive Matt Crockett said formal consultation had begun on the restructure today. Crockett said frontline tenancy management roles are not directly impacted by the proposed changes.

“When Kāinga Ora was established in 2019, its mandate saw it rapidly expand to deliver thousands of new social houses and urban development projects and other functions,” Crockett said.

“That period of growth, however, was not financially sustainable. Kāinga Ora has since announced its reset and now needs to resize its workforce and renew the organisation to align to this new direction."

Kāinga Ora managed about 72,000 public houses as of February.

It is currently in the midst of a dramatic reset under Housing Minister Chris Bishop and the new board, following hotly disputed allegations of financial mismanagement.

Staff numbers and staff costs rose considerably at Kāinga Ora since the organisation was created under the last Government. Staff and professional services costs rose from about 12% of revenue in 2018 to 20% in 2023.

Staff numbers nearly doubled, with Kāinga Ora’s 2019/20 annual report recording 1611.87 FTEs (fulltime-equivalent) and the 22/23 annual report recording 3305 FTEs. As of the end of March, that has fallen to 2,819 FTEs.

Public Service Association (PSA) national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons described the cuts as an “attack on tenants, their families, [and] an attack those who need homes to live in”.

Fitzsimons said the cuts would be resisted.

“With other cuts made last year, all up, a third of the workforce would be axed because of the Government’s ideological refusal to invest in Kāinga Ora, despite a record number of houses being built by the agency,” she said.

Crockett said that there will be some impact in customer-facing roles, including housing placement and call centre teams, but said this would not negatively impact on the support and services provided to tenants.

“We have carefully looked at how many people we have in these roles now and how many people we’ll need while continuing to maintain our service levels,” he said.

“I would like to reiterate the support we provide to the people and whānau in our homes will not be impacted.

“We’ll continue to respond to requests and queries promptly and the proposed changes would not slow down or affect how quickly we match people to a suitable Kāinga Ora home.

“While our people have been aware that workforce changes were coming, it has been a difficult day. Our priority now is ensuring we do everything we can over the coming weeks to support them through this process.”

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.