Submission on the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

1 The Beneficiary Advisory Service (“BAS”) strongly opposes this legislation and urges the select committee to reject it.

Our status as submitters

2 BAS was set up in 1992 to promote and protect the legal, social and citizenship interests of people on benefits and low incomes. Our workers, both paid and voluntary, are drawn from this group and derive a wide range of skills and opportunities through the work they do. Our organisation also reflects the ethnic diversity of our clients, as our workers are of Maori, Pacific and Pakeha/Palangi descent.

3 We are registered as a Charitable Trust under the name of the Christchurch Peoples Resource Centre.

4 Our primary service is to provide individual information, advice and advocacy for people who are experiencing problems in the benefit system. These problems range from simple entitlement questions to complex legal issues. We have dealt with many of the benefit reviews in Christchurch and we have helped to prepare cases for the Social Security Appeal Authority, the High Court and the Court of Appeal. People who are faced with social security problems are almost invariably referred to us if they contact other community agencies.

5 We have around 4000 client contacts per year and deal with clients from all over the country. At any one time, we would be working intensively with around 50 -100 clients plus an average of 4 new client calls per day. This would involve information and advice, direct negotiation with the Ministry of Social Development, and representation at hearings. Our referrals come from all the major agencies and a wide range of non-community sources. We are unique as a service in terms of a combination of perspective, knowledge and skills.

The flawed “consultation” process

6 We express our deep concern at the attenuated process for submissions, which allows only 11 working days for the preparation of submissions. We also note with concern the exceptionally tight timetable for the select committee to report back.

7 The bill itself is 68 pages long and contains radical changes within existing legislation already notorious for its complexity. The regulatory impact statements and accompanying cabinet papers supplement the bill with a further 148 pages of required reading.

8 It is no answer to argue, as the Minister of Social Development has, that a lengthier submissions process is unnecessary because the thrust of this legislation has been foreshadowed. Almost all legislation is introduced after advance notice. Fundamental changes to the welfare system, accompanied by harsh penalties, clearly merited a far more considered approach.

9 This markedly inadequate time for submissions is exacerbated by the deletion of key passages from the regulatory impact statements and accompanying Cabinet papers. On our count:
• 94 paragraphs have been removed in total (this does not include apparent substantial deletions at the conclusion of the documents, where calculation of paragraph numbers is impossible); and
• 16 further paragraphs contain deleted passages.

10 Where it is possible to identify the nature of the deleted material, the passages removed apparently cover such fundamental issues as:
• costing;
• risks;
• human rights implications;
• observations on the capacity of private sector “service providers”; and
• comment from other government agencies.

11 Given the attendant uncertainties of the proposed scheme, outlined in what remains in the regulatory impact statements from officials, this level of deletion is extraordinary. In our experience, the Ombudsmen are quite unable to deal in a timely way with challenges to the withholding of such material under the Official Information Act 1982, particularly when the passage of legislation is rushed.

Read the full report here:
BAS_submission_on_Social_Security_Amendment.pdf

ENDS

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