Statement from Chief Executive on proposed workforce changes

When Kainga Ora was established in 2019, the breadth of work we were tasked to deliver expanded significantly and we had to increase our workforce.

We have performed our core functions while constantly evolving, and over the last 18 months we have been able to start reducing our internally focused change programmes and resources.

Kāinga Ora is now further responding to government direction to identify potential savings while maintaining the delivery of our core functions and services.

In November 2023 Kāinga Ora introduced recruitment restrictions for all roles that were not frontline or customer facing and removed 300 roles from budgets. We have not been replacing people as they have left, and we have not renewed fixed terms roles as they have ended.

The next phase of this work is focused on achieving further efficiencies by changing the approach we take and reducing the volume of work we undertake in some support (or back-office) functions. We are realigning, repositioning and reducing the size of those teams.

There will be job losses as a result of this work. We are very mindful of the impact this will have on our people so we’re taking a staged, considered approach that enables us to carefully support staff through the process.

We are currently consulting with staff in teams within the People Governance and Capability, and National Services groups about change proposals.

Kāinga Ora will be offering voluntary redundancy to people in the affected teams.

We are also responding to reduced Crown funding (appropriation) for some housing activities and programmes. This relates to our urban development planning function, our sustainbility activities, Iwi and ropu Maori engagement and partnership, and the delivery of housing-related Crown products.

Several groups will be impacted and change proposals with affected teams have started, or will commence in the coming weeks.

Kāinga Ora will continue to deliver on its legislative requirements in these areas.

We have also started a consultation process with people in our Commercial Products and Infrastructure Acceleration Fund teams.

Where we have completed consultation or have it underway, the proposals could reduce staff numbers by 193*. There will be further proposals developed and consulted on as we determine the exact impact of the changes to our appropriation funding.

Kāinga Ora is committed to making sure that staff are the first to learn of any changes that are proposed.

*statement updated at 20 June 2024 to reflect addition of new change processes and the completion of our consultation with our Government and Sector Relationships team.