The Vocational Education Minister assures its Te Pukenga de-merger is responsible, despite Treasury raising concerns.

Newstalk ZB can reveal it urged the Government to seek reassurance that allowing polytechs to go back to governing themselves would help their finances.

The mid-March paper warned the financial situation would be the same, if not worse, than before the merger.

Penny Simmonds told Ryan Bridge if they did nothing, Treasury would be right, but they haven't sat on their hands.

She says they've spent 18 months with financial advisors working with each polytechnic, getting rid of excessive staffing levels and non-viable programmes.

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