Judith Collins MP
National Party Welfare Spokeswoman

19 April 2007

Labour runs on the spot with problem benefits

“The latest figures show Labour is running on the spot with its efforts to shift sickness and invalids beneficiaries off welfare and into work,” says National Party Welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins.

“Labour’s over-hyped PATHS programme was supposed to be making serious inroads into the number of people collecting the sickness and invalids benefits. It isn’t.”

PATHS is the flagship programme meant to remove, reduce or manage the health problems that prevent sickness and invalids beneficiaries from working.

The only eligibility criteria is that a person must be in receipt of the sickness or invalids benefits and have a health condition which is a barrier to returning to employment.

“However, the figures show the programme is failing to make inroads into the number of sickness and invalids beneficiaries, both in terms of participation and success.”

When the first PATHS pilot in Manukau was announced in 2004 there were 15,000 supposedly eligible under the pilot.

“This programme was meant to be the answer to reducing numbers on these problem benefits, but as at the end of February 2007 only 343 people had participated in the South Auckland initiative which began in February 2004.”

The figures in other centres were equally disappointing.

* 179 in Wellington (programme began in Oct 2004)

* 169 in Canterbury (programme began in Aug 2005)

* 262 in Bay of Plenty (programme began in March 2005)

* 102 in Taranaki (programme began in Nov 2005).

“Of the 1000 or so total participants, only about 300 have come off the benefit.
With sickness and invalids benefit numbers increasing by 4,000 last year alone it is clear this scheme is not having any impact at all.”

Work and Income spent $500,000 on PATHS in January and February 2007 alone.

The total expenditure planned for such pilots was $127million over a four-year period. Steve Maharey claimed Labour believed they could make ‘serious inroads’ into the numbers on sickness and invalid’s benefits.

“However, two years into the scheme there are 12,000 more people on these two benefits.”

ENDS

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