3. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this
to the Minister for Social Development and Employment
Are there sufficient resources available to front-line staff to provide services to the growing number of unemployed New Zealanders who require assistance from the Government?
Hon BILL ENGLISH
Mr SPEAKERHow will making 180 people redundant from the Ministry of Social Development, as proposed in a confidential briefing paper last week, assist the Ministry in providing front-line services for New Zealanders, particularly children and families affected by the economic crisis?
The Government has made it clear that it wants to move resources to the front line. In the case of the Ministry of Social Development, that is particularly important because of the growth in the numbers of unemployed. I am surprised that the Opposition is asking that question, because the Ministry’s plans for living within its budget were actually made under the previous Government.
If resources provided to front-line staff are adequate, why did the Work and Income office of Upper Hutt cut corners and use an employment broker who had been issued with an improvement notice by the Department of Labour for mistreating workers in Marlborough by cramming 22 of them into a house built for six to eight people and ripping off their wages?
If there was a genuine problem there, I am sure the Minister will look into it. By and large, though, the Ministry of Social Development, as that member will know, has shown itself to be an efficient and innovative Government department. It will have huge demands to meet over the next 12 months.
Sue BradfordWhat steps will the ministry be taking, if it is shifting staff from the back room into the front room, firstly, to make sure that such staff are adequately trained to deal with the greater number of unemployed people coming through the door, and, secondly, to deal with the very likely wage differentiation between the people coming, for example, from areas of policy analysis to be front-line case officers?
Those are essentially operational matters for the chief executive, but we would expect that the ministry will train the people who are on the front line, because it is important that anyone coming in the door who has lost his or her job gets the best service that the Public Service can offer.
Is the Minister aware that 80 unemployed people were handed over by Work and Income to the said employment broker and sent to the Wairarapa to work, only to have 20 of them be underpaid or receive no wages at all; and what is she doing to reduce the pressure that she has put on staff to get people off the dole at any cost?
If those events occurred, I am sure the Minister will move to remedy them, because people should be treated fairly. The Government makes no apology for the fact that the Ministry of Social Development does have the job of doing everything it can, within reason, to ensure that people do not go on to the benefit, and it has been able to show a track record of some success in that.
Is the Minister aware that regional Work and Income offices are being inundated with recently unemployed workers wanting financial assistance and guidance, and that officers are now barely coping with the number of new clients; and will she now admit that her comments about the growing number of unemployed being “just a blip” were wrong?
I think it is obvious to anyone who reads a newspaper or knows about his or her community that unemployment numbers are rising. The Ministry of Social Development is going to work as positively as it can to ensure that as many as possible of those people who are unemployed are redirected into jobs so they do not have to go on a benefit, and that those who are on the benefit get a good service.