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    One Stop Shops
    More details on the announcements
    from The Jobs Letter No.70 / 22 December 1997

  • In the short-term, it will look like business-as-usual at the Employment Service, Income Support and the Community Employment Group. They will continue to work independently until September 1998. Likewise, the Local Employment Co-ordination Committees (LEC) are being absorbed into the new structure.

  • The government's first priority will be to integrate the business processes within NZES and Income Support. It is expected that the relocation of offices will take up to two years to accomplish, although NZES and Income Support are already sharing premises in thirty centres.

  • The process of merging the existing entities will be managed under a chief executives' steering group, which will be comprised of the State Services Commissioner as chair, and the chief executives of the Departments of Labour and Social Welfare, and the Secretary to the Treasury.

  • A transition unit (of government officials) and transition manager will be responsible for developing detailed design of the new agency and merging the agencies. In the meantime, the chief executives of the two departments will remain the employers of the staff in their departments, and their staff continue to be responsible to their existing managers.

  • The transition process with the merger of the two main departments is similar to the merger of the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Agriculture, which is presently underway.

  • Contracts for Training Opportunities Programme (TOP) training for 1998 are already in place and will be honoured. Responsibility for TOP funding will be split between Vote: Employment (65%) and Vote: Education (35%) from the 1998/99 financial year.

  • For 1999/2000 year purchasing, $24 million of the Vote: Employment portion of Training Opportunities funding will be available to Regional Employment Commissioners to spend on "other types of interventions to achieve employment outcomes for the new agency's clients." The balance of $97 million will still be spent on TOP type training in 1999.

  • The 1,100 community organisations presently serviced by the Community Employment Group, will have to deal with their local one-stop-shops when they are established.

  • The one-stop-shop will also assume responsibility for student loans and allowances.

  • Total staff involved with the transition: 4,594 people. This breaks down as NZES (1,034), CEG (91) and IS (3,469). It represents 14% of the public service workforce.

  • The number of centres and offices involved in the transition: NZES (97 employment centres and 4 regional offices), CEG (5 regional offices and 62 locally based field staff) and IS (131 offices).

  • The Head Office staff involved: NZES (180), CEG (30) and IS (300).

  • The immediate net cost of integrating NZES, CEG and IS into a one-stop-shop?, is estimated at about $36.7 million in the 1998-99 year, and a further net cost of $11.3 million in 1999-2000.

  • The government ultimately expects to save a net $20 million per annum than it costs to run the existing structures.

  • See also Prison Inmate Work Policies

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