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RNZ News
a day ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Despite decades of cost cutting, governments spend more than ever. How can we make sense of this?
By Ian Lovering* of International relations academic Ian Lovering delves into some of the history and social structures at play behind decisions about the national budget. Photo: RNZ Analysis : Recent controversies over New Zealand's Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme have revolved around the apparent shortcomings of the food and its delivery. Stories of inedible meals , scalding packaging and general waste have dominated headlines. But the story is also a window into the wider debate about the politics of "fiscal responsibility" and austerity politics . As part of the mission to "cut waste" in government spending, ACT leader and Associate Education Minister David Seymour replaced the school-based scheme with a centralised programme run by a catering corporation. The result was said to have delivered "saving for taxpayers" of $130 million - in line with the government's overall drive for efficiency and cost cutting. While Finance Minister Nicola Willis dislikes the term "austerity", her May budget cut the government's operating allowance in half , to $1.3 billion. This came on top of Budget cuts last year of around $4 billion. Similar policy doctrines have been subscribed to by governments of all political persuasions for decades. As economic growth (and the tax revenue it brings) has been harder for OECD countries to achieve over the past 50 years, governments have looked to make savings. What is strange, though, is that despite decades of austerity policies reducing welfare and outsourcing public services to the most competitive corporate bidder, state spending has kept increasing. New Zealand's public expense as a percentage of GDP increased from 25.9 percent in 1972 to 35.9 percent in 2022. And this wasn't unusual. The OECD as a whole saw an increase from 18.9 percent in 1972 to 29.9 percent in 2022. How can we make sense of so-called austerity when, despite decades of cost cutting, governments spend more than ever? In a recent paper , I argued that the politics of austerity is not only about how much governments spend. It is also about who gets to decide how public money is used. Austerity sounds like it is about spending less, finding efficiencies or living within your means. But ever rising budgets mean it is about more than that. In particular, austerity is shaped by a centralising system that locks in corporate and bureaucratic control over public expenditure, while locking out people and communities affected by spending decisions. In other words, austerity is about democracy as much as economics. We typically turn to the ideology of neoliberalism - democracy as much as economics. We typically turn to the ideology of neoliberalism - "Rogernomics" being the New Zealand variant - to explain the history of this. The familiar story is of a revolutionary clique taking over a bloated postwar state, reorienting it towards the global market, and making it run more like a business. Depending on your political persuasion, the contradiction of austerity's growing cost reflects either the short-sightedness of market utopianism or the stubbornness of the public sector to reform. But while the 1980s neoliberal revolution was important, the roots of austerity's managerial dimension go back further. And it was shaped less by a concern that spending was too high, and more by a desire to centralise control over a growing budget. Godfather of 'rational' budgeting: US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara (right), with US president Lyndon B Johnson (centre), in a Cabinet meeting, in 1968. Photo: Yoichi Okamoto - Public Domain Many of the managerial techniques that have arrived in the public sector over the austerity years - such as results-based pay, corporate contracting, performance management or evaluation culture - have their origins in a budgetary revolution that took place in the 1960s at the US Department of Defence. In the early 1960s, Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was frustrated with being nominally in charge of budgeting but having to mediate between the seemingly arbitrary demands of military leaders for more tanks, submarines or missiles. In response, he called on the RAND Corporation, a US think tank and consultancy, to remake the Defence Department's budgetary process to give the secretary greater capacity to plan. The outcome was called the Planning Programming Budgeting System . Its goal was to create a "rational" budget where policy objectives were clearly specified in quantified terms, the possible means to achieve them were fully costed, and performance indicators measuring progress were able to be reviewed. This approach might have made sense for strategic military purposes. But what happens when you apply the same logic to planning public spending in healthcare, education, housing - or school lunches? The past 50 years have largely been a process of finding out. What began as a set of techniques to help McNamara get control of military spending gradually diffused into social policy . These ideas travelled from the US and came to be known as the " New Public Management " framework that transformed state sectors all over the world. Dramatic moments of spending cuts - such as the 1991 " Mother of all Budgets " in New Zealand or Elon Musk's recent DOGE crusade in the US - stand out as major exercises in austerity. And fiscal responsibility is a firmly held conviction within mainstream political thinking. Nevertheless, government spending has become a major component of OECD economies. If we are to make sense of austerity in this world of permanent mass expenditure, we need a broader idea of what public spending is about. Budgets are classically thought to do three things. For economists, they are a tool of macroeconomic stabilisation: if growth goes down, "automatic stabilisers" inject public money into the economy to pick it back up. For social reformers, the budget is a means of progressively redistributing resources through tax and welfare systems. For accountants, the budget is a means of cost accountability: it holds a record of public spending and signals a society's future commitments. But budgeting as described here also fulfils a fourth function - managerial planning. Decades of reform have made a significant portion of the state budget a managerial instrument for the pursuit of policy objectives. From this perspective, underlying common austerity rhetoric about eliminating waste, or achieving value for money, is a deeper political struggle over who decides how that public money is used. To return to New Zealand's school lunch programme, any savings achieved should not distract from the more significant democratic question of who should plan school lunches - and public spending more broadly. Should it be the chief executives of corporatised public organisations and outsourced conglomerates managing to KPIs on nutritional values and price per meal, serving the directives of government ministers? Or should it be those cooking, serving and eating the lunches? * Ian Lovering is a lecturer in international relations, at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. This story was originally published on The Conversation .
RNZ News
26-05-2025
- General
- RNZ News
School lunch documents reveal nutritional assessments, student taste test results
Butter chicken lunch from Lincoln Heights school (left) and chicken teriyaki lunch at Massey Primary School. Photo: RNZ / Louise Ternouth The amount of coconut cream allowed in a curry, the questionable categorisation of potato as a salad vegetable, and the wildly varying results of taste tests are among matters covered by school lunch scheme documents obtained under the Official Information Act. The documents provided insight into meal development by the School Lunch Collective last year and earlier this year as it prepared to take over the contract for feeding students at about 440 schools . They included Education Ministry assessment of the nutritional value of the meals and accompanying side snacks, ministry emails to staff at Compass, the company leading the School Lunch Collective, and the results of taste testing of three meals last year. They showed that curries should not have more than 15ml (about one tablespoon) of coconut cream per serving and soy sauce in a teriyaki meal should not exceed half-a-teaspoon. They also showed that children's reactions varied enormously with one child describing a meal as "five star", but another in the same class writing "taste bad and looks bad and smell is bad" about the same meal. The documents included advice from the now-defunct food preparation company Libelle on how schools could increase children's uptake of the meals. It suggested withholding treats until after lunch, serving meals at the first break of the day rather than waiting until lunch time, and providing condiments such as tomato sauce. It also suggested serving food buffet style so children could choose, changing lunch orders on an online portal to avoid unpopular meals, and "the five senses initiative" which asked children to consider their meal and note their observations on a brightly-colour checklist. Advice from food preparation company Libelle told schools how they could increase children's uptake of the provided meals. Photo: Screenshot / Compass Group The documents inluded results from taste tests last year of three meals with children in different schools. In February last year a taste testing of a beef curry and rice meal across a number of schools and classrooms resulted in comments ranging from "meat is amazing" and "liked everything about the meal" to "too bland" and "didn't look appetising". Multiple comments noted difficulty opening the meal containers and that a hot meal was not appealing on a hot day. Overall, 13 percent of students did not like the meal, 35 percent were neutral and 53 percent liked or strongly liked it. "As a result of receiving the above summary feedback, Libelle made changes to the process of cooking the diced meat and started to investigate the claims of difficult to open lids again," the document said. It showed a macaroni and cheese meal was revised to improve the cheese flavour and hide vegetables following feedback that akonga "do not like vegetables and couldn't taste the cheese flavour". A test of the revised meal across six schools resulted in 57 percent of pupils giving a positive rating, 21 percent neutral and 23 percent negative. One school said all children ate the meal and wanted it back on the menu, but another said everyone disliked it: "Their feedback was that it was gluggy. I dissected a meal and it was quite congealed and the pasta did appear overcooked and mushy". The document showed further investigation revealed the negative feedback was from a school that received the meal several hours before it was consumed and negative opinions about the meal from school staff might have influenced pupil opinions. Comments about the meal included "I love it, give us more of it please", "it was so cheesey", "looks weird", "smell yuck", "basic and ok". A trial of beef rissoles across two schools proved the most divisive with 44 percent positive, 24 percent neutral and 32 percent negative. "It was good but not that good," wrote one student, while another wrote "I like all of it and it was amazing". "Too much thyme or mixed herbs - it's in everything almost every day," wrote another. By 22 May last year, Libelle noted that 13 schools had opted to stop receiving the beef rissoles and gravy meal and it was planning to update the meal with a new improved version for the following term. Documents released under the Official Information Act reveal 13 schools opted to stop receiving a beef rissoles and gravy meal from the school lunch programme. Photo: Screenshot / Compass Group Among the released documents was a spreadsheet showing Education Ministry assessments of 24 meals and, for older children, accompanying snacks against nutritional requirements. It showed an early version of Mac n Cheese failed to make the grade because it was too light, 209 grams instead of at least 240 grams with just 30 percent of the required protein, while a gluten-free version had 99.875 percent of the protein required. Muesli bars, yoghurt raisins, banana chips and pretzels failed to make the grade as acceptable snacks. A 12 December 2024 email from the Education Ministry to Compass Group said all main meals for the proposed menu for term 1 2025 had been assessed as meeting nutrition requirements, but two changes were requried for the sides that accompanied lunches for students in Year 9 and above to ensure the total meal met nutritional requirements. "There are four meals that fall short of meeting nutrition standards, two are within an acceptable margin (Beef Rissoles and Mac n Cheese), however the other two will need to be adjusted to meet nutrition standards. Beef bolognese is 9g below the protein food requirement and Chicken Teriyaki Rice exceeds the amber allowance by 8g," the email said. The School Lunch Collective said amber ingredients, such as coconut cream, were allowed in meals, but only up to a certain amount. On 10 January 2025, the ministry emailed Compass Group asking for changes to four meals. "Butter Chicken: Coconut cream is double the allowed serving size for both age group. Needs to be reduced to 15mls per serve. "Ham Mac n Cheese: no percentage of cheese in the sauce so can't confirm meets protein requirements. "Thai Chicken: Coconut cream again is over the amber serving limit of 15mls per serve. "Beef rissoles: Doesn't meet veg content (note saying potato considered as salad veg?) but even with veg in rissole, brownie and onion in gravy it is still short." On 13 January 2025 a ministry email to Compass Group listed changes required to five meals. "Butter Chicken and Thai Chicken - reduce the coconut cream content to no more than 15mls per serve. "Mac n Cheese: confirm cheese content (needs to be at least 17g per servce to meet yr 4-8 protein requirement) and ensure sides contribute sufficient protein to meet Y9+ requirements of at least 50g. "Teriyaki Chicken: ensure that soy sauce content is less than 1/2 tsp (2.5ml) per serve. "Beef Rissoles: increase vegetables by at least 15g to meet Y4-8 min requirement (60g)." School Lunch Collective figures showed it was delivering about 103-107,000 lunches to about 440 schools a day with waste or uneaten lunches ranging from six to 10 percent. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
26-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Dead insect larva found in government funded school lunch
File image. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi Food safety officials are investigating the discovery of a dead larva found in a government funded school lunch in Auckland. Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle says it was found in a meal at Kelston Boys' High School on 12 May. He said the larva has been sent away for testing and the results were expected back next week. The tests should confirm what type of insect it is and help determine how it might have got into the food. He said although officials were looking into the complaint, at this stage there was no evidence there was a wider problem with the School Lunch Collective which provides the meals. The Collective has been approached for comment. The lunch scheme was plagued by problems in term one, with criticism of late, inedible, repetitive or nutritionally lacking lunches, and even a case of a lunch containing melted plastic. The Auditor-General's office has announced plans for an inquiry into the programme .
Times
22-05-2025
- Health
- Times
School meals help fussy eaters try new foods, study finds
Having school meals could encourage picky teenagers to eat better, a study suggests. When children who were picky eaters got to choose their own food at school lunchtimes they ate a wider variety of food compared with those who had a packed lunch, researchers found. The findings, published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, suggested that picky eaters at the age of 13 were more likely than less choosy children to avoid meat, fish and fruit in their packed lunches. But there was little evidence of picky eaters avoiding those foods in school dinners. In the study, picky children were less likely to have meat or fish sandwiches in their packed lunches and instead have fillings such as Marmite, peanut butter or cheese
RNZ News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Labour asks Auditor General to consider cost burden in school lunches probe
Labour's education spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith Labour wants an inquiry by the Auditor General into the school lunch programme to go further, and has written to the watchdog requesting it consider things like the cost burden on schools. The Auditor-General's office announced plans earlier this month for an inquiry into the school lunch programme that has drawn criticism since its revamp. It will cover Ministry of Education planning, procurement and contract implementation under David Seymour's alternative model. Seymour at the time welcomed the inquiry. "I actually would like to offer [the Auditor-General] some of the lunches so he can audit them with his mouth, and I think what he's going to find is a programme that has overcome some initial hurdles to deliver great value, very good lunches at half the price of Labour's scheme," he said. Minister David Seymour eating lunch at the launch of the revamped school lunch programme. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Labour's education spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime said the investigation should include whether providers are meeting agreed standards, the programme's value for money and how complaints are being managed and standards enforced. She said she's heard from schools that have forked out hundreds of dollars without being reimbursed by the government. "I'm hearing from schools that have had to fork out hundreds of dollars without any reimbursement because of David Seymour's botch-ups, and there are many cases of food waste as poor quality lunches go uneaten." She said it's a struggle to get straight answers out of Erica Stanford and Seymour about why the programme has been "so chaotic" and what they're "actually doing to respond." "We welcome the Auditor-General's inquiry into the ongoing issues with the programme and look forward to seeing these issues addressed," Prime said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
