More IR job cuts coming as department enters key phase of 'modernisation'
It is two years since Inland Revenue deputy commissioner Greg James announced the department would lose about 1500 staff; in August there should be more word on how.
Big job cuts are coming closer at Inland Revenue as the department starts planning for another key stage in its $1.5 billion Business Transformation modernisation programme.
Inland Revenue revealed to a select committee that it made 149 staff redundant this year and would start talking to staff in August about how the next round of changes could affect them.
Deputy commissioner Greg James first announced in 2016 that the department planned to cut about 1500 jobs – 25 to 30 per cent of its workforce – between the start of this year and 2021.
In February, the department moved 3800 staff into new roles. But another 149 staff "exited with redundancy", with the department shelling out just under $16m on redundancy payments, it said in a written response to questions from a select committee.
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Inland Revenue said its executive team was now looking at how the department could best work once its transformation programme was completed in 2021.
Work on the future operating model had been divided into five streams, each led by a manager and supported by "design leads, co-designers and subject matter experts from the business", it said.
"Once future operating model options have been developed, this work will be shared with all Inland Revenue staff for their feedback in August."
It said the Business Transformation (BT) programme would create "an agile, intelligence-led organisation built around the needs of its customers".
No decisions had been about the timing of any changes this financial year, ending next June, and Inland Revenue forecast that its permanent staff numbers would decrease only slightly before then.
Inland Revenue commissioner Naomi Ferguson, second from left, told a select committee in February that the BT project was $54m under budget.
Inland Revenue has been reducing the proportion of staff on permanent contracts as it prepares to make do with a smaller workforce, figures provided to the select committee also show.
It employed 4841 full-time and part-time staff on permanent contracts at the end of April, which was 520 fewer than in April last year.
Commissioner Naomi Ferguson sold the select committee in February that it was increasingly employing people on two-year contracts "knowing that, as a result of transformation, we expect our workforce to be 25 to 30 per cent smaller".
The next major milestone in its BT programme is scheduled for April next year when it is due to complete the migration of income tax and Working for Families to its new computer system, Start.
Employers will then file PAYE information to Inland Revenue on each payday and individual taxpayers who receive investment income will get the option to report that to Inland Revenue more regularly.
Inland Revenue said that would mean "faster, more accurate tax information, providing near real-time visibility of tax", faster tax refunds and less likelihood of big end-of-year tax bills.
The overall BT programme is budgeted to cost between $1.5b and $1.8b, including contingency funding.
- Stuff
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