Land Information Minister Chris Penk. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A parliamentary watchdog has warned the government it is making tiny cost savings only to deal a real blow to the collection of critical information about the oceans.
The government has rejected this.
This follows Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) pulling out of leading a group that works on marine geospatial data.
"The savings in question - effectively one FTE [job] - are tiny in comparison with the value," the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton wrote to the Land Information Minister Chris Penk last month.
The group is designed to help 70 organisations, including most of the biggest ministries, pick and pay for the right priorities for coastal and ocean mapping.
It was an efficient approach when money was tight, and while the group would continue to operate, "no other organisation seems to be resourced and better placed than LINZ to lead and coordinate this work", Upton told Penk.
It was just another case of the "fragmented" handling of environmental data crucial to running the economy, he said.
However, Penk replied to Upton that leading the group was not core work for LINZ - it had not been funded, mandated or directed by the government to do it.
It took up more than one job, because the agency helped develop apps and provided geospatial expertise.
"Given the current fiscal environment, LINZ must focus on its core business of collecting, maintaining, improving and publishing its geospatial information," Penk said.
LINZ has disestablished 54 vacancies and cut six people's jobs under the public sector cuts.
LINZ said it was no longer a priority to lead the group.
It had coordinated and chaired it for five years, but "recent reprioritisation of its work programme means that LINZ can no longer resource this initiative".
"There are additional costs beyond the one FTE previously allocated to lead it," said head of location information, Aaron Jordan, such as a dedicated chair and coordinator and managerial support.
The agency was looking at what its role might be in the group now.
Upton questioned its priorities.
"I find it hard to believe that this expenditure [on leading the marine group] was of less value than anything that remains funded within your vote," he told Penk.
"At the very least, I would encourage you to ask some hard questions of your officials to see whether alternative lower priority expenditure could be removed to keep this function alive."
He also cited RNZ's revelations in June that LINZ has dropped a three-year-old, all-of-government project to build a system for sharing emergency management data in a disaster, called a CODEM.
"These decisions - which appear to have been made with minimal consultation - impact on two crucial data-focused initiatives that have required significant investment from the public sector and have far-reaching ramifications across environmental, societal, and economic domains," Upton wrote.
Penk earlier told RNZ the end of CODEM would not affect the government's ability to respond.
Upton said there was an urgent need for anational data strategy.
A geospatial strategy done in 2007 has largely been forgotten, and the geospatial office that championed it was disestablished by LINZ several years ago, even though it was an all-of-government office, RNZ has reported.
Penk told Upton that broader strategic work on data was being done by LINZ and the government chief data steward (GCDS).