25628 (2025). Hon Barbara Edmonds to the Minister responsible for the GCSB

25628 (2025). Hon Barbara Edmonds to the Minister responsible for the GCSB: How many permanent staff, if any, were employed within each of the Minister’s responsible agencies, if any, during 2024/25 financial year?

Hon Judith Collins: I have interpreted your use of “permanent staff” to be for FTE, and used existing data for 30 April 2025 to avoid administrative burden on the agencies. As reflected in the attached table, the number of FTE for 2024/25 as at 30 April 2025 has remained relatively steady for the GCSB, with the NZSIS FTE decreasing. This temporary reduction is as a result of a joint change process undertaken by the GCSB and NZSIS in late 2024, which was not implemented until 3 March 2025. The GCSB and NZSIS share a number of joint enabling functions, with some staff working across both the GCSB and the NZSIS. In ensuring the agencies’ workforces are well-balanced, some of these shared staff were redeployed from one agency to another, while continuing to work across both of the agencies in these shared functions. The changes also involved the reallocation of vacancies and certain roles, including disestablishing some roles and the creation of new roles. During the period of change the agencies were unable to undertake recruitment activity for vacant positions. At the same time, the agencies made a small number of people redundant, and continued to experience normal rates of attrition. This led to the overall FTE reducing. As reflected by the projected 2025/26 FTE, this is a temporary reduction while the agencies conclude recruitment for those vacant positions.