Hon Steven Joyce
Minister of Finance

16 May 2017 Media Statement

Government responds to Productivity Commission on social services

Finance Minister Steven Joyce has today released the full Government response to the Productivity Commission’s report on More Effective Social Services.

“The Government is well-aligned with the Productivity Commission’s recommended direction,” says Mr Joyce. “We have made a number of changes to our methods of investing in and evaluating social services since the Commission’s report was released.”

“These include implementing the social investment approach, establishing a Minister Responsible for Social Investment and setting up the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki.”

The Commission delivered its report in September 2015. It provided 89 findings and 61 recommendations, including:

• empowering the client by increasing the amount of choice that clients have about what, who, when, where and how they access services

• improving service delivery to those with complex needs and who have low capacity to co-ordinate and access services

• improving commissioning and contracting processes

• operating the investment approach at a cross-programme and cross-agency level

• creating a system that learns, innovates, and uses data

• improving monitoring of performance at both the programme and system level.

“The full response released today provides a good stocktake of where we are up to and what is yet to be done,” says Mr Joyce. “This Government is very focused on improving the lives of New Zealanders through the development and application of the social investment approach.”

The Government response can be found here.

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