23 April 2013

Feedback ignored in rush to restructure DOC

Forest & Bird says the timing of today’s announcement confirming the Department of Conservation’s initial restructuring plans shows that the 12 working day consultation process for staff and stakeholders was a sham.

DOC announced this afternoon that its overall restructuring plan will go ahead essentially as it was proposed in late March.

The announcement confirmed that large numbers of job titles and descriptions will be rewritten to put more emphasis on finding sponsorships and volunteers.

“Despite the very short consultation period, DOC received more than 1000 submissions on its restructuring from inside and outside the organisation. But just over a week after submissions closed, the original proposal for the new structure has been confirmed. How can that possibly be a proper consultation?” asks Forest & Bird’s Advocacy Manager, Kevin Hackwell.

Many of the submissions are known to have been made jointly by some of the 1700 staff DOC employs.

“It would have taken more than a week for the department’s management to even read all the submissions,” Kevin Hackwell says.

“The haste with which this is being done shows that this restructuring is politically driven rather than having anything to do with finding efficiencies.

“The Prime Minister announced just last weekend that he was putting $158 million into promoting tourism. But at the same time his Government is undermining the department that looks after what those tourists come to see,” Kevin Hackwell says.

The actual jobs that the department will be cutting will be announced on May 7.

Tomorrow outside Parliament, at 12.30, DOC supporters will form the message ‘Love DOC’ with their bodies, to show their opposition to the cuts.

ENDS

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