Bill English has slammed Labour's decision to abolish the Better Public Service targets put in place under National, calling it "lazy, dumb, government."
The National leader was addressing media outside Parliament today when he let his feelings on the issue clearly be known.
"Very disappointing to hear yesterday that the government is abolishing the better public services results, these have been in place now for five or six years and have had a profound impact on how our public agencies work.
"The government's decision to abolish it is a step backward to lazy dumb government. The public service was getting good at digging into our hardest long term social problems, child abuse, family violence, criminal offending and long term welfare dependency," he said passionately.
Mr English then accused the government of trying to avoid any accountability over public service spending.
"The Labour Government has clearly decided they don't want to be held accountable for spending billions of dollars of tax payers money that gets spent each year on helping New Zealand's most vulnerable people."
However, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has previously stated her government will be looking at replacing the Better Public Service targets with a new system.
"We will in the longer term absolutely be replacing those Better Public Service targets. Our view always has been that those targets didn't give us the systemic change that we need for some of those big issues that the country faces," Ms Ardern said.
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