Financial Review Debate — Ministry of Social Development

I begin this evening by congratulating the Minister for Social Development and Employment, the Hon Paula Bennett, on her selection for an Eisenhower Fellowship, and I tell the Minister that I genuinely mean that. It is a great honour to have been chosen to go and have 6 weeks’ study in the United States. Many years ago I had the opportunity to go for 3 weeks, and I studied assistance for dependent families in the United States. One of the things I learnt—and I suspect that the Minister will learn it—was that it is a very different country from New Zealand, with very different values, particularly in terms of the way it treats families. So I will be interested in what the Minister comes back with, after her study there.

I will raise one particular issue with the Minister tonight, and I am seeking answers, around the whole area of Whānau Ora. I think it is time that we had some answers. Whānau Ora is a flagship policy of this Government, we are being told, over and over again. But every time we have questioned on this issue, we have not been able to find out, first of all, what it means. Members of the Social Services Committee, who were there on the same day that I was, were astounded when we had Government departments tell us that they did not know what Whānau Ora was and could not give us a definition of what it was. I think that the Minister, in terms of blocking any information on this and refusing all information requests—and not only this Minister but also all other Ministers with portfolios related to it—is not doing a service to New Zealand. Now we have commentators writing about Whānau Ora and defining it as they would like to define it.

I will put on record that Labour is not opposed to the concept of Whānau Ora. After all, Tariana Turia was my Associate Minister of Health back when we were in Government, and I very much understand where she comes from and what she wants to achieve. Tariana Turia has not changed what she believes Whānau Ora is, but we have been getting conflicting and confusing messages from this Government, depending on which audience its members are talking to. Tariana was very upfront and forward about this policy. She said that this policy was for Māori, by Māori. But after a period of time, and obviously some polling, Mr Key then decided that he needed to say: “No, no. It is for all New Zealanders.” After several weeks of that, Tariana Turia said that if all New Zealanders wanted to access it, they could. That was said on one medium, but when Mr Key was interviewed on Māori media—and perhaps he thought that no one was listening—he said: “No, no. It really is for Māori, and it will run in the same way as kōhanga reo. If other New Zealanders want to access it through Māori, then that is how we will do it.” But that is two messages; people do not know who will be able to access it.

Tonight I tell the Minister for Social Development and Employment that I would really like her to answer a number of questions for this Committee. Where will the funding come from? Will it come from the Pathways to Partnership money—the over $100 million that was parked in the Minister of Finance’s contingency fund? How will the service to providers be decided? How will taxpayers’ funding for Whānau Ora be monitored? How will the outcomes from Whānau Ora be measured? Can the Minister also tell us whether there will be a “Minister of Whānau Ora”? Will Te Puni Kōkiri be the lead agency for this programme? Will there be regional Whānau Ora committees? Will there be a separate appropriation for Whānau Ora?

All those recommendations were in the task force report given to the Government, which it has refused to release, even though it has now had the report for weeks. The Government has had the report for weeks. It just so happened that a departmental report with the recommendations in it made its way to other members of this House. I say to the Minister that I think it is time that those questions were answered. We already have funding being allocated under the label of Whānau Ora funding—$415,000 has been allocated to five women’s refuges. I do not have any problem with that, but I ask where the money is coming from for the Government to be able to provide it to those five refuges.

I tell the Minister for Social Development and Employment that I think it is time there was a clear description of Whānau Ora. When I asked the Minister in the House for a description, and actually gave her a description and asked whether it was Whānau Ora, the Minister said yes. But that was the same description as for Strengthening Families, a programme that already exists. I ask the Minister to take this opportunity to put on the record what this programme is all about, because people are seeking answers.

I am grateful for the opportunity to stand up and talk a bit, in the financial review debate, about what the Ministry of Social Development has been doing and how it goes about that. The Ministry has departmental appropriations of $1.1 billion a year, of which $950 million is in running costs. The Ministry has met $168 million in cost increases, up to June 2009, through efficiency gains and cost-reduction activities. It has plans for a further $272 million in gains over the next 3 years. Its value-for-money programme looks at the potential for those sorts of efficiency gains through measures such as self-service online tools and options that reduce the level of administration.

It has been quite a focus for us that we get back to people. We are back to how we work with people, how we are actually managing them in their lives and helping them by working alongside them. If one asked me in all honesty how we were going to make the biggest difference for those who are dependent on welfare, both short-term and long-term, I would say that it comes down to the relationship they have with their case managers, how they work together, how we give them the right sort of incentives with the right sort of obligations, and how we are able to back that up with that people contact.

A big part of this past year, and a big part of the financial review, has been about cutting down on some of the administration side, so that we free up people to spend money on the stuff that really matters. Goodness knows, there is a lot of efficiency to be made in there, and I wanted to share some of it with the Committee, because I think that that is the way forward, particularly for Work and Income and for the Ministry of Social Development.

Let me give members a couple of real examples, because at the end of the day that is what matters. Study Link made 400,000 transactions online via MyStudyLink—that is, 400,000 transactions were made online via MyStudyLink. Ninety-seven percent of student loan and student allowance applications were made online. A mail online service was implemented on 1 November 2009, and since then 168,919 letters have been viewed online. So something as simple as saying to young people that they can view their mail online instead of having it posted to them has meant that the cost savings and the efficiency gains have been substantial. It means that there are people actually working with people, which I think is what will make a difference.

Let me talk about the payment card. In 2009 food grants made up half of hardship assistance payments. There were 501,000 payments totalling $52 million—501,000 payments totalling $52 million. That is big, big bucks. Introduced in November, again, was a payment card for food special need grants. Between November 2009 and January 2010 the time saved by the use of payment cards was approximately 7 minutes per application. That does not sound very interesting—7 minutes. What is that? How is that going to go? But that translates to approximately 11,700 case management hours. So once we add up the volume we are dealing with, and cut that time down to 7 minutes, 11,700 case management hours on pure administration have been taken away. It means that those people can be spending that time with people and on stuff that really does matter.

Approximately $350,000 was saved, as well, due to the unspent amounts on those cards. What happened was that when people had the amount on letters, it stayed on the letters; it stayed with whomever they spent the money with—with the supermarket. Now that that money is not being withdrawn from the Government’s bank account, it means that it is being saved and that we can invest it back into people. It is that stuff that will make the ultimate difference.

What we have also done, which we have been really fast-tracking over the last few months, is bring in high-trust contracts. In the past under Labour we heard a lot about integrated contracts and what they were—and this one really gets me! With integrated contracts Labour would have an organisation that had 7 contracts. It would have those seven, add another one on top, and call it an integrated contract. But none of those seven would be changed; none of those seven would be taken away. Instead, Labour would just add another one and say that that was integrated. What we have done instead is bring in a high-trust contract. That means that all of those seven are taken away. They are replaced by a 3-page document that says “We actually work together in this. We are focused on the people that we want to help.”, instead of it being about who has the power and what the relationship looks like, and the constant partnership stuff that we used to hear about under the previous Government. We say that instead of actually focusing on each other and what that relationship looks like, how about we focus outwardly and on to people—the people we all agree we want to work with. The results have been outstanding.

It is my pleasure to take a call tonight as the chair of the Social Services Committee. We have a very good ministry in the Ministry of Social Development. Peter Hughes and Ray Smith make a wonderful contribution. I believe the Ministry of Social Development is most probably one of the strongest ministries we have in New Zealand, with the strongest leadership we have, as well. Not only that, but it does many, many things that pre-empt what is happening. In fact, when we heard a recession was coming—after the first quarter we knew a recession was coming; Labour was in Government then—it already started putting things in place to face those changes. It is very proactive. It knew that when times were getting tough, when the economy was going to shrink and more people would be unemployed, it would have to focus on getting those people into jobs. It looked at changing the way it was set up and helping people in their Work and Income New Zealand offices. It knew that it would have a lot of people in transition who were not going to end up getting a benefit, because they would transition quickly into another job. It had to treat those people a little bit differently from the normal client base that it treats. It had to treat them so that they would not be scared to come in to say they were looking for a job and could be moved on quickly.

I want to acknowledge the ministry in how it moved quickly in the environment that we faced. It did not wait for it to build up and get out of control; it moved quickly. It moved its resources. The ministry is a very, very big ship. It is very hard to change direction, but it did it quickly and swiftly, and without fuss. So I acknowledge the hard work that it has put in to ensure that our vulnerable, those down on their luck, and those who are just unlucky to lose their jobs in a recession have been looked after as well as they possibly can be in these hard times.

I also acknowledge the hard work that the Minister for Social Development and Employment has done. This is a Minister who has no fear, this is a Minister who addresses the issues, and this is a Minister who says exactly how it is. She has done many things—many things, indeed—to help the people of New Zealand in this recession. She came in as a Minister when there was a recession. That was not in the good times when unemployment was low, when we had high employment. It was not the good times; it was the tough times when this Minister came in. She comes into this House, day after day, and gives straight, honest answers to questions. I acknowledge the hard work that she has put into this ministry as well, into the people of New Zealand, and into our most vulnerable.

So what has she done? Well, where do we start? She has done a Student Job Search summer jobs campaign, which is the most relevant thing she has done just immediately, because university students have just gone back. So it is important that we identified that they needed a little bit of assistance over the summer break. That was put in place. Never, Ever Shake a Baby—what a fantastic campaign that is. How powerful that is. The Minister recognised that the message has not been out there for a very long time. We have had some terrible, horrific cases of child abuse in New Zealand, so she took that issue head on. Never, Ever Shake a Baby—what a powerful message that has sent to New Zealanders.

Then there is the Break Away package for school holidays. Thirty-thousand young people did activities during the school holidays. There are 500 places in respite camps and 100 places in the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme. How relevant is that to our youth in New Zealand? It is totally relevant, and so effective.

Fresh Start for young offenders has 3,000 places and programmes designed to address the causes of young offenders’ behaviour. How relevant is that, coming off a review that has just been done on youth and youth offending, and the new bill that was introduced into the House at the beginning of this year to address that problem? There is $152 million for the Youth Opportunities package and there are 17,000 places for people aged between 16 and 24. This Government is committed and focused, and so is the Minister.

I will end by addressing a question that Annette King asked during her speech in this debate. She asked where the money is coming from. I can say that the money will be there, because we are watching the money; we are very focused on the economy, unlike Labour, which seems to be able to waste money. Imagine if Labour had not spent the money on the tax bus. Imagine if Labour had not spent the money on the national standards bus. How much did that cost? Imagine how many children could be helped with that amount of money.

Report noted.

Department of Conservation