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Speaker 1: So the Finance Minister looking to overhaul the social services

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Speaker 1: space as we told you yesterday, more focus on outcomes

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Speaker 1: not outputs. Less cross contamination when it comes to multiple

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Speaker 1: agencies doing multiple things and know and seemingly knowing what's

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Speaker 1: going on, and the idea that performance pay in the

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Speaker 1: public sector could be back anyway. Social Investment Minister Nicola

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Speaker 1: Willis is in charge of all of this and is

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Speaker 1: with us. Very good morning to.

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Speaker 2: You, Good morning mate.

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Speaker 1: To my eye, it's got a slightly wooly sort of feel.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what is social investment and this is Costa's

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Speaker 1: job eventually, what specifically is it and what changes?

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Speaker 2: Well you think about basic concept. Everyone in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: degrees Let's not have an ambulance at the bottom of

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Speaker 2: the cliffs. Let's build the fence. It's a bit tricky

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Speaker 2: when you have to work out, well, where should we

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Speaker 2: build the fence, who are the people who need defenses,

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Speaker 2: who's good at building fences, and how do we check

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Speaker 2: the fences are working. That's what social investment's about. It's

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Speaker 2: about proper prevention and proper early intervention so that people

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Speaker 2: don't go on to lead life of crime, welfare dependency,

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Speaker 2: under achievement, and we know that there are some things

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Speaker 2: in communities that do work off and they're delivered by

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Speaker 2: very grassroots organizations, by EWE, by non government organizations, by

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Speaker 2: social organizations. So what government tends to do is go

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Speaker 2: off and fund literally thousands of different contracts across the

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Speaker 2: country feel really good because it's funded them, and they

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Speaker 2: never check in to see which ones are working and

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Speaker 2: which ones should we be standing up to the Social

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Speaker 2: investment is about cleaning all of that up and being

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Speaker 2: much more purcepitseful about what we invest in and whether

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Speaker 2: it's working.

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Speaker 1: The Cross department stuff. Do you have any idea how

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Speaker 1: bad that is, how big it is therefore, how much

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Speaker 1: you can save, and how much more efficient you can

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Speaker 1: be specifically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, as I said, more than eighteen thousand contracts, Mike,

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Speaker 2: And so there are multiple non government providers who are

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Speaker 2: working with vulnerable New Zealanders who will have more than

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Speaker 2: upwards of thirty different contracts. So piecemeal little contracts, a

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Speaker 2: little contract year for good off violent prevention, mineral contract

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Speaker 2: year to prevent children going into stake year, contract year

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Speaker 2: to help with children with mental distress, multiple contracts, and

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Speaker 2: then those will come from multiple departments, so there might

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Speaker 2: be six or seven different agencies involved. So they're spending

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Speaker 2: hours filling informs, reporting, doing all of this administrative bureaucracy stuff.

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Speaker 2: And my view is, look, as they're a proven provider,

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Speaker 2: tell them what they want to achieve, measure it. If

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Speaker 2: they're achieving it, we keep funding them. If they're not

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Speaker 2: achieving it, then we've got to make a change.

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Speaker 1: Does something to do with the mindset of the public service.

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Speaker 1: Because I've followed Labor with interest. They've been asking care

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Speaker 1: and Shaw, particularly about Orangatamariki, and she was arguing, look,

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Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of providers there that have money

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Speaker 1: in the bank and never provided any service. Labor never

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Speaker 1: seemed to get their head around the idea that if

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Speaker 1: you're not spending your money, you're not doing your job.

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Speaker 1: Just in simple terms, Why is that level of thinking

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Speaker 1: prevalent in Wellington? What's gone wrong there? Everyone else in

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Speaker 1: the real world talks about outcomes, not just handing out contract.

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Speaker 1: Was it so weird where you are?

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Speaker 2: Well I call it the easy complacency of good intention,

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Speaker 2: and it's about that thing of well, look, we've five

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Speaker 2: different programs to prevent family violence. So it doesn't that

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Speaker 2: feel good and it feels great to say, look, we're

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Speaker 2: putting all this money in, but my view is trying

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Speaker 2: hard is not good enough. Actually you have to go

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Speaker 2: a step further and say, okay, well we had a

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Speaker 2: good intention, but is it working? And that question is

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Speaker 2: very challenging because if you're a government agency and it

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Speaker 2: turns out the thing you've been funding is a bit hopeless,

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Speaker 2: then maybe the next step is to say, let's stop it.

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Speaker 2: And so look at I wouldn't just blame public servants.

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Speaker 2: I've blame politicians too, because politician we love announcing things

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Speaker 2: and saying, look how lovely we are and how caring

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Speaker 2: we are. It's a bit hard a year or too

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Speaker 2: latest to say, well, we're going to have to stop that.

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Speaker 2: And that social investment is about introducing some rigor to

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Speaker 2: all of that, being much more purposeful and frankly taking

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Speaker 2: power away from government aid agencies and all of the

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Speaker 2: buacracy that comes with it and putting it down on

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Speaker 2: the grapped grassroots with the people and communities who actually

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Speaker 2: know what's going on.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your time as always. Nichola will as Finance Social

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Speaker 1: Services Minister.

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