9. Question No. 9—EducationPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of EducationQuestion No. 9—Education9. PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Education: Is he confident Te Pūkenga is on track to achieve its objectives and how much if anything has been spent to date on redundancy payments for senior executives?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): After a difficult year I am confident that Te Pūkenga are back on track. However there is still a lot of work to do over the next year and beyond. I do not hold a figure in response to the second part of the question. I have been advised that there have been a number of redundancies across the Te Pūkenga network and that these will be reported in the Te Pūkenga annual report in the normal way.Penny Simmonds: Why have so many senior executives abandoned the Minister's Te Pūkenga reforms and does he accept responsibility for hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money being paid out to senior executives?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I would reject the premise in the member's question. If someone has been made redundant that doesn't mean that they are abandoning the network; it means that there is rationalisation going on across the country in order to reduce costs in senior management and gain the greater efficiencies that we have been striving for.Penny Simmonds: Can he confirm that nearly 500 staff will be made redundant by the end of 2026 according to the Te Pūkenga programme business case version 15 and does the Minister think that these staff will see large payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars to senior executives as fair?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In terms of whatever payments people who are made redundant receive that's a matter for Te Pūkenga to follow employment law—and of course good faith—when those decisions are made. But we were absolutely clear when we established the Te Pūkenga organisation that we believe that there are greater efficiencies that can be gained by having one national organisation rather than 16 and as a result yes there are likely to be significant changes. We also need to be upfront about the fact that record-low or near record-low unemployment is meaning that Te Pūkenga and private training establishments and other vocational education providers are facing a softer pattern of enrolments and that is going to result in them having to look very carefully at their costs to make sure that they don't run unsustainable deficits as the system was operating when we became the Government.Penny Simmonds: Was any due diligence done on the merger of 16 polytechnics and eight industry training organisations (ITOs) with different IT systems given his comment on the Nine to Noon radio show that low to mid hundreds of millions of dollars need to be spent on creating common student management and finance systems on top of the $200 million already spent?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That is the nature of the business case process.Penny Simmonds: Can the Minister explain how creating new layers of dysfunctional management and bureaucracy on top of our polytechnics has in any way improved the financial sustainability or education performance of the sector and is he concerned that his legacy as education Minister will be a costly failure that has wasted millions of dollars distracted the sector and delivered absolutely nothing for students?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No I absolutely reject the premise of the member's question. What I can say is that we are focused on reducing costs within the vocational education system so that we can direct that funding into delivering better outcomes for learners—something the member might have focused on when she was chief executive at Southern Institute of Technology given they had some of the worst learner outcomes in the country during the time that she was the chief executive of that organisation. The fact that we have a declining pattern of enrolments in provider-based training and an increased number of people going into apprenticeships and work-based learning highlights the benefits of the reform programme in bringing those two systems together to create more sustainable vocational education in New Zealand. If the last Government had been focused on delivering sustainable vocational education we wouldn't have the critical skills shortages that we have now.SPEAKER: Any further supplementaries? Jolly good.