Kiwiblog

Simon Collins at NZ Herald reports:

Housing NZ chief executive Dr Lesley McTurk has told the corporation’s 1100 staff that staff numbers will be cut by about 100 as the agency’s focus narrows down to managing its 70,000 state houses.

“We will no longer have a role to assist individuals with their wider social needs. We will concentrate on their accommodation needs,” she said.

Most tenancy managers will become “fully mobile” by next September, reporting from their cars to five home bases in central and South Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch.

Housing NZ should indeed focus on being a great landlord, not an agency of social workers.

Labour housing spokeswoman Moana Mackey said a Labour Government would reverse the changes and turn Housing NZ back into “a social housing provider rather than just another landlord”.

Of course.

But a consultation document issued to staff a week ago says the agency would “stop delivering social services that should be delivered by other organisations”.

“Tenancy managers and case managers frequently find themselves following up with many other agencies such as Child, Youth and Family [CYFS] on child safety concerns; district health boards on health; budget services; school truancy issues and so on,” the document says.

“The Ministry of Social Development [MSD] will act as a conduit for all other agencies that need to provide social support to the corporation’s tenants.”

Dr McTurk said all existing Housing NZ branches would be absorbed gradually into MSD’s “Community Link” centres, which already bring together Work and Income, CYFS and sometimes other agencies in 50 locations. A further 30 are planned in the next year.

And that is probably one of the best things you can do to help families in need. A “one stop shop” centre which brings all the social need agencies together should be vastly superior to having each agency doing its own thing.

Let Housing NZ be a great landlord, and MSD be a great  social service provider.

Stuff has a couple of stories on government funded community max schemes, where the outcomes have been very dubious – catching horses to release them again, and a Maori Internet business directory which is not online.

Personally I am dubious about many of these taxpayer funded community schemes. They can provide useful skills and experience to those who don’t have any, but they can also cost a lot of money and not produce much in the way of outcomes.

MSD say the majority of participants in the two examples above, have gained skills and are now off benefits. But paying $175,000 for a project (a Maori online business directory) that it seems wasn’t even needed (there are existing ones) is an expensive way to go about it.

The Dom Post reports:

The pornographic connotations of the word “teen” are stopping emails from reaching the government department responsible for youth issues.

The Social Development Ministry is blocking any emails with the word – or its plural, “teens” – from getting through, because it is often associated with advertising for online pornography.

But Labour deputy leader Annette King has labelled the firewall ridiculous, and called for the problem to be fixed.

The word is on a blacklist of terms blocked by the ministry, meaning that only email addresses on a “white list” can receive messages containing those words.

Annette is right – how stupid. Blacklists or filters based on words are almost always over-reaching. Smart anti-spam programmes look at a whole host of stuff to assign a probability something is spam.

Social Development Ministry chief information officer David Habershon said the word teen was blocked because it was often used in advertising for “adult websites”.

“We base our parameters in terms of the words that are on the blacklist based on best practice.”

He would not say what other words were blocked.

The ministry was “continually refining” its list, but had to seriously consider which words were acceptable, he said. “When we find examples of particular words which are legitimately used within certain business units we amend our systems accordingly. But in doing so, we have to weigh up the impact of removing a particular word against the benefits.”

I despair at the thought of departmental staff sitting down and deciding what words to block. Just use a “smart” anti-spam filter that learns as it goes.

I blogged last month, re Victoria Stevens:

She managed to wrestle with Police after barking like a dog and swearing in front of the widow of the man her son is accussed of murdering.

So I am forced to wonder, what is the actual nature of the condition that meks her unable to work? After all, it took four police officers to subdue her, and she still manage to kick the court room doors open as they removed her.

I hope someone from MSD/WINZ takes note, and perhaps refers her to an independent doctor for confirmation of this mystery condition that makes her permanently unable to work.

The Dom Post reports today:

Mrs Stevens, 43, confirmed yesterday that she had been contacted by the Social Development Ministry and asked to make an appointment with an accredited doctor to prove she was eligible for a benefit.

She had spent years in an abusive relationship and suffered from arthritis, weak bones and emotional difficulties, she said.

She saw a Hastings doctor yesterday. “I don’t care what people think. It’s emotional and physical. That’s all I’m going to say.”

She would not say how long she had been a beneficiary.

Very impressive that she managed to wrestle four police officers despite her arthritis and weak bones.

Good to see MSD doing the right thing and referring her to an accredited Doctor.

Some people regard this as bad news:

The Ministry of Social Development aims to cut its staff of 9500 by 5 per cent (475) over the next four years by automating some processes and allowing people to apply for some benefits online.

I regard that as very good news.

If we want to lift wages for everyone, then you do it through productivity gains, and online automated processes are one of those ways. And a 5% reduction over four years is pretty modest – I doubt anyone will lose their job – just that some vacancies do not get filled.