Key questions SPARC expenditure. Frog questions Crosby/Textor expenditure.
I was trolling the blogosphere, as one does on a rainy Friday afternoon, and had a read of David Slack’s post over at Public Address. He was questioning John Key’s questioning of SPARC’s budget for websites. After running through a very pertinent list of the hard work it would take to create websites that got kids outdoors, I’m beginning to think that perhaps their budget is a bit skimpy. When you consider the potential payback to the taxpayer of this rather non-intrusive intervention, it looks like value for money. How many heart attacks, strokes or Type II diabetes cases would it need to prevent to save $5.5 million in health costs? I suspect that even a modestly successful SPARC website would be good value for money.
This sort of reminds me of National’s response to Jeanette’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act 2000. They decried it as totally unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer’s money. Surely the market alone can ensure that all businesses and homes will achieve optimum efficiency? Hardly. The Electricity Commission’s KEMA report shows that there is at least 16% in economic energy efficiency potential in both the residential and commercial sectors. Money just lying on the floor. So much for free market efficiency.
So now it’s my turn for a question. How much did John Key/National pay their foreign handlers for the advice to attack SPARC or not to engage in the public debate about the ETS? It seems we all lose when one of the big parties back out of the public debate. If National kills off SPARC, we all lose. If National refuses to give credible answers about its ETS position, we all lose.
That’s money poorly spent Mr. Key. In fact, it’s costing the taxpayer heaps for you to talk to your foreign masters. Come home. Engage. Debate. New Zealand might just become a better place.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Other sports bodies have websites, National wants to give the money to those other sports bodies. But SPARC is going to duplicate the existing websites sites with a state service website and refusing to give this money to sports organisations. How many more cases of diabetes are they creating by this wasteful duplication of services that are already carried by volunteer sports organisations?
July 4th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Does it come out of Parliamentary budgets? If it is NAtional Party money it is none of your business. ARe you going to insist on similar transparency for all parties including your own? Or is this a move down the Standard line of attack anything and everything but only to do with Key and the NAts?
And as for the EECA Act, just how much improvement in efficiency above business as usual did it actually achieve compared to targets? How many solar heating units have been installed recently under her pet scheme?
July 4th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
>>their budget is a bit skimpy
You have got to be kidding! I’ll do it for half that price, and I’ll still have plenty left over for a new Ferrari.
And you are assuming that website does get kids active. God knows how, as it doesn’t appear on any traffic radars, indicating very few people ever see it.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
trends.google.com/websites?q=www.sparc.org.nz&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Doesn’t even register….
July 4th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
$5 million dollars for a website (Mission On) that isn’t even registered with Nielsen Net ratings ? Why isn’t it registered with Nielsen because every man and his dog would know how much traffic they were not getting.
It’s Alexa NZ rating is south of 10,000 (bigger numbers are worse), interest.co.nz has a rating of around 750 & I know costs no where near $5 million dollars.
I understand from sources that mission-on.co.nz gets about 1500 page impressions per month, for 5 million dolllars of tax payers money? Get real.
July 5th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Bryan, it doesn’t need to have a huge effect or viewership to pay for itself. Do you know how many health problems good exercise prevents?
It’s also amusing how net-illiterate you are. Firstly, Alexa is a terrible tool for capturing web traffic as it only measures people who use its plugin. In a small subsection of the web- like the kiwi part of it- Alexa usually has so few installed users that it’s completely unreliable.
Secondly, there is little point wasting money registering with an expensive traffic analysis company when you can achieve a similar level of information with free open-source traffic tracking applications.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:32 am
frog,
As per usual you are attacking the messenger, not the message.
The message was clear, how come so much money is being spent on admin, web site and salaries (47 employees earning over $100,000) when quite rightly it should be ploughed into spending that improves New Zealanders health.
Who is the minister in charge of this spending?
The minister should be reviewing (along with the CEO) where the money is being spent and is it delivering value for money.
Plus ask the question, if we were to outsource the advertising and promotional activity to the private sector contractors, would we get an even bigger bang for the bucks.
With the economy spiralling downwards I would imagine this will be one of the first government departments to get axed.
And as such Nats and Key bring up a valid point that this spending is not sustainable.
This constant attacking John Key is not doing you (or Labour) any favours.
Try attacking the message. How much money would you spend on Sparc?
Where will it come from? How wuold you measure the outcomes?
While I’m on a roll. How does Sparc measure outcomes now and are we as tax payers getting value for money?
And what exactly do 47 people earning over $100,000 each achieve each and every day?
Seems like a cosy pyramid managment structure in place. Loads of money, no measureable outcomes leading to empire building.
If there is one National policy I totally agree with is this review of public expenditure on warm fuzzy outcomes.
Especially in dire economic times. Ready for another round of rogernomics yet?
July 5th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Ari,
I have extensive experience in this field, and that spend on a website is patently ridiculous. The fact that any government official would defend it merely shows they have no idea what things cost.
From my calculations, they are overpaying by a factor of 13 on the website alone, so god knows what else they are wasting money on.
It is reasonably straightforward to measure a websites reach. Take a website where you know the traffic numbers, compare it across tracking services like Compete, Alexa, Google Trends, and others, then do the same thing for the target site.
How is Sparc measuring ROI? How do they measure what affect they are having, and for what cost?
It wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t even measuring it. Much like the Buy Kiwi Made campaign, I asked how you were tracking the return on investment, and nobody had a clue.
Typical politicians. They take money and burn it. Pathetic.
July 6th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Frog, how much will your polices cost everyday NZers if you were in the realms of power? Can you please cost these up please?
Also, if the Nats money is theirs, = NOYB.
If money is from allocations from Parl. Servs and they are within budget = so what.
Apparently opposition parties are not allowed to question waste and excessive salaries.
Farrar has a post saying more people at Spark are on $150KPA than the Reserve Bank. This says to me that there is serious over payment of salaries at Spark.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I can’t believe Frog posted this crap.
5 million is too much to be paying, and this just shows us what is wrong with big government.
Why should I work to help put greens into power when we have people like Frog in the party who hold the citizens of this country in utter contempt. We are supposed to be dealing with a future with limited resources well in this future we are going to have to learn to be efficient and one thing that has never been efficient is a new zealand government department.
Why is the National party leading the cry against this waste and yet the so called party against waste the greens are quiet. The Greens are the first party to rise when a large corporate is wasteful but when a government department does it, the silence from the party shows the people of New Zealand the true party color and it aint green.
So Frog will Russel be standing up in parliment next question time and joining John Key in attacking sparc and calling into question the labour party over this wasteful use of the citizens money.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Ari: “Bryan, it doesn’t need to have a huge effect or viewership to pay for itself. Do you know how many health problems good exercise prevents?”
Then why not spend the money directly on exercise rather than websites and policy analysts ? I have no doubt that one of the many policy analysts already employed by the Min Ed. already knows which schools have the un-healthiest kids FFS just give those schools the money to spend on improving fitness outcomes. I’m sure the principals & BOT of those schools can figure it out. We could then get rid of SPARC altogether and see $114.9 million (08/09 budget) invested directly where it is needed.
“there is little point wasting money registering with an expensive traffic analysis company” What ??? It is OK to spend $5 million on a website and not spend $310/month on Nielsen ? You only do that if you don’t want people finding out how little traffic you get.
The only good news is that for the at least next decade you and your Green mates are going to be twiddling your thumbs on the opposition benches with your hands well away from the cookie jar.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:58 am
BluePeter: “It wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t even measuring it. Much like the Buy Kiwi Made campaign, I asked how you were tracking the return on investment, and nobody had a clue.”
Oddly enough I have already asked the question & Sue Bradfords response was:
Dear Bryan,
Thanks for your email inquiring about Buy Kiwi Made achievements. The $6.3 million Buy Kiwi Made media campaign is research-informed and the outcomes are regularly evaluated.
There has been an 11 percent increase in the number of shoppers who always or often consider whether a product is made in New Zealand.
Our regular research shows that with the help of the Buy Kiwi Made campaign more than 1.3 million shoppers are now thinking about buying Kiwi made, an increase of 200,000 since the media campaign began.
Just as significantly as the consumer response, 7 percent more retailers are likely to consider stocking Kiwi made goods. Our target is for more than half of all retailers, across all categories, actively considering New Zealand made goods when it’s time to order stock.
As a result of the campaign 60% of manufacturers across all industries said they were in favour of the campaign.
The media campaign has worked closely with the Buy New Zealand Made Campaign and one of our other success measures has already been exceeded. Halfway through the media campaign, membership of the Buy New Zealand Made Campaign Ltd, entitling use of the kiwi in a triangle logo, has soared past 1000 members.
A series of pre- and post-campaign measures have been devised and the campaign itself is subject to continuous monitoring of the consumer component, and point in time testing of the retailer and manufacturer components. You can read the results of that research here at:
http://www.buykiwimade.govt.nz/aboutkiwimade/AboutContent.aspx?Posting ID=254
Regards,
Sue Bradford,
Government Spokesperson
Buy Kiwi Made
July 7th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Ari:”He’s currently trolling the labour markets and is hidden away in an underground pro-feminist cell, out of the reach of both the mythical radical lesbian feminazis and the somewhat-less-unreal forces of the menacing Patriarchy.”
Ok, I can see where you are coming from now. I look forward to your thoughts once you become a taxpayer or even better a self-employed taxpayer.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Bryan
“There has been an 11 percent increase in the number of shoppers who always or often consider whether a product is made in New Zealand.”
A loose branding campaign, in other words.
What a waste of taxpayer money.
When it comes to purchases, what people CONSIDER doing is meaningless. What they DO is what counts.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am
BluePeter: “A loose branding campaign, in other words.”
Excellent point