Media Statement

For Immediate Release

5 May 2011

Community Sector welcomes pre-Budget announcement about training subsidies for young people

A pre-Budget announcement to spend $55.2m on work and training subsidies for young people is a useful start in addressing the issues of engaging young people in the workforce, but further investment will be required to fully implement the Welfare Working Group’s recommendations.

Ric Odom, National Chief Executive Officer of YMCA New Zealand said the funding was a good start but that the crucial issue in terms of making a difference to youth engagement in the workforce was that the training was relevant and there were actually jobs at the end of the training.

“The Welfare Working Group in its recommendations was clear that more needs to be done to support people into paid work and independence, and to send strong signals about expectations in the welfare system.

“It was advocating for a stronger focus on activities prior to people going on to welfare.

“However, for any training to work and achieve the Government’s desired outcome of fewer people on welfare, will require jobs at the other end of the process,” Mr Odom said.

Tina Reid, Executive Director of the New Zealand Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations, said it was a positive move to focus on youth. However, training alone was unfortunately not going to be enough to achieve the Government’s desired outcomes around benefit numbers.

“Many of the young people exiting the school system early already have complex issues with learning difficulties, often with drug or alcohol issues as well.

Ros Rice, Executive Officer of the New Zealand Council of Social Services said the crucial question was how the youth training announcement fits with the Government’s decisions around the Welfare Working Group recommendations made earlier this year.

“While you can appreciate the Government is keen to advance some good-news initiatives in the pre-Budget period, the critical thing is how this announcement fits in with an overall strategy of support.

“The Prime Minister has made a commitment to ‘breaking the welfare cycle’ and has recognised the necessity of increasing upfront investment to support beneficiaries into work.

“To be effective that is going to need to include significant investment in education, child care and health and reducing inequality in our communities so we build aspirations in families and individuals. At a time when support for early childhood care is being cut and District Health Boards are ‘reprioritising’ their funding, there is a danger that the Government just invests in one activity that has no back up to achieve its goals.”

It was hoped the youth training announcement meant the government was abandoning the thought of taking a punitive approach to benefit receipt.

Wendi Wicks of DPA (NZ) said the disability sector would also be interested in how the youth training funding would be applied to support disabled people.

“If the Welfare Working Group wants to see an improvement in employment outcomes then it needs to recommend an investment in employment support services,” Ms Wicks said.

Currently the Ministry of Social Development only provides partial funding to support disabled people, with organisations having to fund the full cost from other sources.

“There is very little detail as to how this helps disabled youth, and yet we know that the Government is keen to also see an improvement in employment outcomes for disabled people. Training is part of that. But so is an investment in employment support services,” she said.

ENDS

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