Executive Summary

During March the review team held four meetings with a total of 24 representatives from advocacy groups around the country. This paper summarises key feedback from these sessions.

Advocates raised issues about the Department of Work and Income (DWI) however most of these issues were not new to DWI and existed in the previous Income Support. The advocacy groups made very little comment on the integration of employment and income services within DWI.

A complexity with the feedback from advocacy groups is separating what is linked to Government policy or direction from issues related to DWI itself.

The key feedback provided in the sessions was:

• concerns about implementation of policy - that it has been implemented in a more restrictive way than the legislation requires
• a mix of views on case managers but an overall view that case managers needed more training and lower caseloads
• mixed views on call centre access
• concerns about investigation and prosecution of benefit crime
• mixed comment on the relationship with DWI and suggestions for advocacy groups playing a larger role in providing information for clients and training DWI staff
• corporate environment and terminology is not appropriate to DWI clients.

Context

Cabinet approved a ministerial review into the Department of Work and Income (DWI) on 14 February 2000 [CAB (00) M 4/11 refers].

The review was tasked with answering nine questions outlined in the terms of reference for the review. The Terms of Reference also stated that the review should "draw on the views not only of Ministers and the management and staff of WINZ, but also of a range of clients and stakeholders around the country both within the Government and Social Sector."

To identify the views of advocacy groups who work with DWI clients the review team meet with representatives of a range of groups between 15 March and 27 March 2000. Advocacy groups were provided with a copy of the terms of reference for the review.

Purpose

This paper summarises the views of the advocacy groups. It is intended to focus on the organisational feedback provided by the advocates rather than policy issues. One of the difficulties however, was separating what is policy, linked to policy or Government direction from issues DWI could be expected to manage - the differentiation was not always clear.

Categories of Respondents

The review team had four meetings with advocacy groups, in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Greymouth which covered 24 representatives from 14 beneficiary advocacy organisations. Organisations represented were from the following DWI regions:

• Auckland North
• Auckland Central
• Auckland South
• Bay of Plenty
• East Coast
• Central
• Wellington
• Nelson
• Christchurch

Of the groups represented, 14 could be described as working in major cities, 3 in smaller or more provincial cities and 1 in a remote location.

The advocacy organisations represented included community, religious and Maori organisations.

Categories of Response

All the advocacy groups raised issues about DWI. These were a mix of policy and organisational issues. Some of the advocates gave individual case examples.

The advocacy groups all felt very strongly about the impact these issues were having on their beneficiary clients. Several of the groups also mentioned positives about DWI staff.

Representatives in one of the meetings acknowledged that the clients they worked with were people who were unhappy with DWI so their views may not be representative of all clients.

It is also important to note that the advocacy representatives were clear that the majority of issues they raised were not new to DWI and have been issues for some time.

Summary of Feedback

Feedback covered a range of issues, key areas were:

• Implementation of policy
• Case Managers and Call Centres
• Benefit Crime
• Role of advocates and relationship with DWI
• Corporate culture