Finance Minister Bill English said today there was too much duplication and the cost of bureaucracy was too high.
The Government would pick up the pace of public sector reform and structural changes were only part of that, he said.
"You should expect to see more back office savings initiatives, fewer positions in core government administration and more projects that tackle the challenge of more for less," Mr English said in a speech to the Institute of Public Administration in Wellington today.
"The longer we are in office the more it is clear that the costs of running government are too high, there is too much duplication and the organisation is too cluttered.
"We are confident that over time we can continue to get better value for money in the public sector."
Mr English said change in the public service would need to pick up momentum to meet the Government's goals of high-quality frontline services with little extra money.
"Getting on top of our fiscal position, and rebalancing the economy, necessarily means the Government being a smaller part of the economy than it is now," he said.
Details of projects would be released as they came up and reform work would continue for two or three years as ministers and officials looked at projects on a case-by-case basis.
The Government would release the results of a benchmark appraisal of the administrative and support services of 33 agencies in coming weeks.
"This is challenging chief executives to lift their game, learn from other agencies, and look at other ways of providing back office support," Mr English said.
Lower-value spending would be identified to free up cash for higher-priority activities.
A high threshold for structural change would be maintained and reform would focus on reducing waste and ensuring services were modern, responsive and provided good value for money.
"This is essentially about identifying the things that matter most to New Zealanders, doing them better and doing them with less back-office bureaucracy," Mr English said.
The Government was not interested in change for its own sake and the public service itself had an important role to play in implementing change.
"We are a Government that is interested in what works, and that needs to be worked through on a case-by-case basis," Mr English said.
"We are committed to making considered decisions and are open to ideas or propositions from the public sector itself. We want to work with public servants to ensure we improve the focus and results of the public service as a whole."
