State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman sharply criticized Israel’s repeated opening, closing, splitting, and transfer of government ministries in a report published Tuesday, warning that the country’s bloated and unstable government structure harms public service and costs hundreds of millions of shekels a year.
The audit, conducted from March 2024 to March 2025, examined the structure of Israeli governments and the consequences of frequent changes to ministries and areas of responsibility. It also included a separate section on the widespread granting of extra time in matriculation exams.
From the 35th government through the 37th – from mid-2020 through the end of 2024 – governments made 76 structural changes, including opening and closing ministries and transferring areas of responsibility between them.
“The government in Israel is characterized by a large number of ministries compared to other countries, as well as by frequent changes – the opening and closing of government ministries, and the transfer of authorities between different ministries,” Englman said.
“These characteristics exact a ‘functional price’ in the form of a proliferation of government ministries and harm to the effectiveness of government activity and to the service it provides the public. Alongside the functional price, the economic price also stands out,” he added.
The report found “ongoing and real harm”
According to the report, Israel’s current government – the 37th, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since December 2022 – has 31 ministries, 1.5 to 2.7 times more than the countries used for comparison.
The previous government, the 36th, led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, had 29 ministries, 14 of which did not exist in the comparison countries.
The Comptroller identified three central characteristics of Israeli governance: governments are formed frequently, lasting about two years on average; Israel has an unusually high number of ministries; and many of those ministries are unique to Israel, creating a split of responsibilities across multiple government bodies.
The report found that professional teams repeatedly examined streamlining the government, reducing the number of ministries, or eliminating duplications, but their recommendations did not lead to decisions.
“The Prime Minister’s Office did not examine the possibility of abolishing ministries, as required by the government decision from November 2024,” Englman said.
“It can be inferred that political considerations and constraints ultimately override the need to examine the recommendations of the teams appointed for this purpose and to streamline the structure of government,” he added.
In October 2024, the government decided to examine, within 30 days, a proposal to abolish five ministries and to formulate recommendations within 120 days on merging headquarters and transferring areas of responsibility. By August 2025, nine months after the deadline, the PMO had not completed the examination or brought a proposed decision to the government.
The Comptroller also found that the government acted on only one of 12 areas of duplication identified by the Finance Ministry’s Budget Department in December 2023.
Of the 50 areas of government activity transferred between ministries during the period examined, 40% were moved more than once. The average transfer took seven-and-a-half months – roughly a third of the average two-year lifespan of an Israeli government.
The report also found that ministers often approved transfers without basic information. In only five of 75 transfers were ministers presented with budget data, and in only six of 75 were they presented with information about the number of positions being moved.
Englman pointed to several case studies in which ministry reshuffles directly harmed public service.
The Agriculture Planning Authority was moved from the Agriculture Ministry to the Negev and Galilee Ministry in February 2023, then returned to the Agriculture Ministry in February 2025. The Comptroller found the move was “fundamentally flawed,” and that the authority was effectively transferred without its workers or budget.
For the first year in its new ministry, the authority operated without an activity budget. In the second year, it received only a quarter of the resources it had received in its final year under the Agriculture Ministry. Its committees for agricultural land allocations barely operated during the two-year period, with one committee failing to discuss 34 requests submitted between July 2023 and May 2024.
The report also found “ongoing and real harm” in adult vocational training after responsibilities were split between ministries. The number of adult vocational training participants fell by 22% from 2022 to 2023, from 17,189 to 13,385, while employer-led training participants fell by 30%.
The Bedouin Authority, which serves roughly 300,000 residents, was also highlighted. Since its establishment in 2007, it has operated under seven ministries. The current government moved it twice in one year, harming management of its information systems, according to the report.
The Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority, which serves around 120,000 survivors, was also damaged by repeated transfers. The Comptroller found that between 2021 and 2025, NIS 24 million was invested in attempts to improve its information systems, but NIS 14 million went to waste because the work was not completed. The authority still relies in part on an old system that has not been supported by its manufacturer for 17 years and is at “real risk of collapse.”
One of the harshest sections of the report dealt with the rehabilitation of the North and South. “One of the most painful failings in the government’s conduct concerns the handling of the rehabilitation of northern and southern communities and post-disaster recovery,” Englman said.
“Over the course of less than two years, the government made several decisions to transfer responsibility for this between ministries and appointees, all during an emergency period and in the midst of a war,” he added.
Englman said the lack of a stable government line was reflected in his previous findings on the North, including the absence of a multi-year plan for rehabilitation and development.
“These failings lie at the heart of the government’s failure to provide a response for the return of northern residents to their communities and for the rehabilitation of the North, as of June 2025,” he said.
The Comptroller recommended that Netanyahu act to ensure continuity and proper government functioning even when ministries are opened, closed, or reshuffled.
He recommended that the PMO complete the examination of past proposals to limit the number of ministries, consider adopting relevant streamlining proposals, and make future decisions on establishing ministries or transferring responsibilities conditional on full preliminary staff work.
He also recommended that the PMO create a database of government decisions transferring areas of responsibility, set timetables for transfers, and ensure that decisions presented to ministers include full information on budgets and positions.
