Delivering our strategic intentions

This section outlines how we will manage our functions and operations over the next four years to achieve outcomes and results for New Zealanders, and deliver our strategic direction.

Our key priorities over the next four years are:

• getting more people out of welfare dependency and into sustainable work by taking an investment approach to better target support
• protecting vulnerable children and young people by modernising Child, Youth and Family and working with the social sector to implement the Children’s Action Plan
• improving access to social housing for those most in need by delivering and integrating new social housing services and becoming an active purchaser
• strengthening communities through Investing in Services for Outcomes and working with providers to improve their capability
• strengthening fraud prevention and debt recovery by implementing reforms so that people avoid debt and improve future outcomes
• enhancing our social sector leadership role and contribution including leading the Social Sector Forum
• working alongside the social sector to better integrate government services by trialling, learning from and embedding innovative approaches
• building partnerships with communities and creating community-based solutions.

Getting more people out of welfare dependency and into sustainable work

Work is at the heart of a better quality of life for New Zealanders and their families. We are taking a long-term approach and putting people at the centre of targeted support to help those most at risk of long-term welfare dependency get into sustainable work.

The next four years

Over the next four years we will consolidate the gains from welfare reforms by working differently with people and trialling new supports and services to sustain, develop and reinforce the changes to help more New Zealanders into sustainable work.

We will tailor services to better meet people’s needs by taking an active, work-focused approach to get people off welfare and into work, giving them better opportunities and a brighter future for them and their families.

Taking an investment approach

Underpinning welfare reforms is an investment approach that is ensuring we invest our support where it will make the biggest difference. Through this approach we are focusing on people most at risk of long-term welfare dependency by investing more up front to help them get into work sooner. For those who cannot work, the system will continue to provide support.

We are using an actuarial valuation to understand the long-term liability of the welfare system. By using this information, and better data, we will identify groups of people who require more specialised interventions in order to find and stay in work.

We will use flexible funding arrangements to more efficiently shift and prioritise resources to where they are proven to be most effective at improving sustainable employment outcomes for beneficiaries, thereby reducing future dependency on the welfare system in New Zealand.

Based on this approach, we will continue to provide a package of core employment services to achieve better outcomes for those with a high liability. We will trial new ways of working with people such as those who entered the benefit system at a young age and have become entrenched.

A new way of delivering services

Through our work-focused service delivery approach we are improving how we provide services to help people into work. We will put people’s individual employment needs at the centre and tailor the intensity of our services according to how much support they need to find work through:

• personalised, one-to-one work-focused case management, supporting those who need more help to move closer to the labour market and independence
• specialist services supporting those with health conditions or disabilities into employment
• less intensive support for those who are able to find their own way into work or who only need a minimal level of assistance.

We will adopt a professional practice model to develop the capability of frontline staff to help those with greater needs. New data analytics tools will support staff to identify and target the right support to the right people and apply more evidence-based judgement.

Online and self-service options will be improved so that people requiring lower-level services can more easily complete appropriate tasks, allowing frontline services to focus on people with complex needs.

Supporting youth into education, training and work-based learning

Almost 70 per cent of New Zealand’s future benefit system liability can be attributed to people who first went on a benefit as a teenager.

Over the next four years we will continue to ensure young people are supported to develop the critical skills they need to achieve a better life and avoid becoming trapped in a cycle of long-term welfare dependency.

Through Youth Services, we will provide specialist case management and support for 16 to 19-year-olds to help them into training, education or work-based learning.

We will use a combination of Ministry and community- based providers to deliver mentoring and wraparound support for young people and teen parents so they can meet their obligations and reduce their risk of entering a working-age benefit when they come of age.

Supporting people with health conditions and disabilities into work

The Ministry is committed to increasing the number of disabled people in paid employment as part of the Disability Action Plan.

Over the next four years we will implement the Health and Disability Long-term Work Programme. This programme is aligned with the Government Disability Strategy and is aimed at giving a larger proportion of New Zealanders with a health condition or disability an opportunity to find sustainable work.

This work will include improvements to vocational services for people with disabilities to get better employment results and align with the Enabling Good Lives vision of supporting disabled people to have greater choice and control over the supports they receive and the lives they lead.

Working more effectively with employers

Over the next year we will expand the roll-out of our Employer Strategy. This strategy is changing how we work with employers to ensure there is a sufficient supply of the right vacancies for people seeking work, particularly those at the highest risk of long-term welfare dependency. It will enable us to provide a quality service to businesses and help achieve more successful and sustainable placements. It will also create a more nationally consistent approach while still allowing for regional variation.

Changes include refocused brokerage, where work brokers are freed up to work more closely with employers and case managers to help more people into work, and new IT tools to support account management and targeted campaigns.

Improving people’s money management skills

Over the next four years we will increase the provision of budgeting services to meet increased demand. This investment will help people move towards independence by reducing their need for hardship assistance, improving their financial literacy and giving them the skills to better manage their money and households.

Role of the Work and Income Board

We will continue to work closely with the Work and Income Board. The advice and expertise provided to the Ministry by the Board, coupled with the assurance to Joint Ministers, will test and challenge our thinking as we embed welfare reform policy changes and the Investment Approach. The Board will also continue to support and promote innovation.

Protecting vulnerable children and young people

Too many children have a childhood that makes it harder to thrive, belong and achieve. Over the next four years we will lead and contribute to action across the social sector to better identify, support and protect these vulnerable children and young people.

The next four years

A key priority for the Ministry is working with social, health and education sector agencies and communities to respond to the challenge of better identifying, supporting and protecting New Zealand’s vulnerable children.

The Children’s Action Plan and the Vulnerable Children Act will drive transformational changes to the way agencies work together to deliver services to children and young people, and the way the Ministry cares for children under its protection.

Implementing the Children’s Action Plan

The Children’s Action Plan Directorate will work with the social, health and education sectors to implement the Children’s Action Plan. This establishes a new way of working that puts children at the centre of the picture by wrapping services and supports around them and their needs.

A key foundation is the extension of community-based Children’s Teams that focus on understanding the unique needs of each child and working alongside the child and their family to provide the right mix of services.

The Children’s Teams bring together frontline professionals from these agencies, and NGOs, to work with children and young people who are vulnerable but do not require a statutory service.

The two current Children’s Teams (operating in Whangarei and Rotorua) will be expanded by a further eight sites in Horowhenua, Marlborough, Clendon/ Papakura/Manurewa, Hamilton, Gisborne, Whakatane, Whanganui and Christchurch, by the end of June 2015. We will ensure communities are engaged and involved in the design of their Children’s Team to best fit their community’s needs and strengths.

A multi-agency response

No single agency can address the needs of at-risk and vulnerable children on their own.

The Vulnerable Children’s Board is overseeing the implementation of the Children’s Action Plan.

The Board is chaired by our Chief Executive, and includes representatives from the Ministries of Health, Education, Justice, and Business, Innovation and Employment, Te Puni Kōkiri and the New Zealand Police.

Implementation of the Plan will be supported by the Vulnerable Children Act. This substantially strengthens joint accountability and responsibility across the social sector for working together in the interests of vulnerable children.

New legislation requires Chief Executives to work together to develop, deliver and report on a cross- agency plan to improve outcomes for vulnerable children and to ensure child protection policies are in place.

We will work across the sector to operationalise the Act, including implementing:

• strengthened care and protection provisions
• safeguards for the children’s workforce through safety checks.

As part of the Children’s Action Plan, a multi-agency Strategy for Children and Young People in Care has been developed. This strategy will ensure that children and young people in statutory care get the services they need from across government, particularly from the social, health and education sectors.

Better use and integration of information

To better identify and protect vulnerable children we need to build a complete picture of the child or young person and share information more effectively.

Over the next year the Children’s Action Plan Directorate will:

• from 1 July 2014 commence implementation of the Vulnerable Children Act
• commence a multi-year plan to develop core competencies for the children’s workforce
• develop the Vulnerable Kids Information System (ViKi), to build a more comprehensive picture of each child. ViKi will allow frontline professionals, including doctors and teachers, to register their concerns about a child through online channels
• set up The Hub, a central point for all referrals, calls, texts or emails about vulnerable children. Depending on each child’s situation, The Hub will triage them for the level of support they need
• finalise information sharing arrangements to support The Hub, ViKi and the work of the Children’s Teams, based on an Approved Information Sharing Agreement under the Privacy Act.

We are also developing a predictive risk modelling tool to better support the identification of children at risk.

Strengthening the assessment and protection of children in the custody of the Chief Executive

The Ministry provides care and protection for abused, neglected and highly vulnerable children, and those that cannot live safely at home.

Over the next four years we will oversee the modernisation of Child, Youth and Family and further enhance our support for social workers so they can have the greatest impact for these children.

We are strengthening social worker practice and enabling better and earlier assessment to differentiate those families who require a statutory response, and those who can be referred to other social services.

We are also revisiting our performance indicators and targets and quality assurance mechanisms to increase the emphasis on quality social work practice and measuring outcomes.

We will work closely with the Children’s Teams to ensure that vulnerable children who do not meet the statutory threshold receive the services they need.[4] We will also ensure that children who need to move between Child, Youth and Family and the Children’s Teams do so safely.

We have already introduced a more comprehensive approach to assessing children and families who require a statutory response. Over the next four years we will build on this work by improving our single integrated plans for children and young people.

The Tuituia Assessment Framework is a comprehensive assessment process that draws everything we know about a child or young person into one place. It will be used to inform our work throughout care and protection, youth justice, residential and high-needs services.

We will work with district health boards and education services to provide specialist health assessments and education profiles through the Gateway Assessment programmes. This feeds into the Tuituia Assessment Framework by ensuring that children and young people in care, or at risk of entering care, receive the services they need to improve their health and education outcomes.

Supporting social workers and caregivers

The Children’s Action Plan and Vulnerable Children Act will allow Child, Youth and Family to focus on its core business – the children at the highest end of the continuum who have already been harmed.

Notifications to Child, Youth and Family have continued to increase over the past six years – from 89,000 to about 150,000. Social workers play a vital role in ensuring those that require further action are safe and protected.

The Ministry is ensuring that social workers are better supported and workloads are manageable so that they can concentrate on what is most important – the needs of children.

We are also looking to better support caregivers by simplifying some of the complexities around financial transactions and providing coaching and specialist training in order to improve placement stability.

[4] Vulnerable children and young people who need Child, Youth and Family’s statutory services will be referred to Child, Youth and Family, while Children’s Teams will provide services to vulnerable children who are just below the threshold for statutory intervention.

Building strong families and communities

The Ministry, through Family and Community Services, will continue to work with families and communities to prevent children and young people from becoming vulnerable. Along with the providers we fund, we will work with families to support them to find solutions, or connect them with the right services in their communities, to achieve their goals and help them thrive.

As a funder, provider, leader and co-ordinator of support services for families, we will focus on the delivery of early intervention and prevention services and programmes including those that will support the Children’s Teams and Social Sector Trials.

We will also continue to support positive parenting through quality information and advice, fund local organisations to work with parents and their families and co-ordinate local support services.

Improving access to social housing for those most in need

Suitable housing plays an important role in people’s ability to do well in life, raise healthy families and succeed in education and work. We are delivering new housing functions to help people with the greatest need access social housing and assist those who are able to move towards housing independence.

The next four years

The Government’s Social Housing Reform Programme is transforming the social housing sector to make it more sustainable and responsive to people with social housing needs.

These reforms enable the Government to partner with Community Housing Providers to improve the variety of social housing in New Zealand and grow the community housing sector.

As part of these changes, new housing functions have been transferred to the Ministry. We are responsible for assessing eligibility for social housing, managing the waitlist, referring potential tenants to approved providers, carrying out tenancy reviews, calculating and reviewing income-related rents and paying rent subsidies. We will also manage associated debt and fraud investigations.

Independent and effective assessment of social housing needs

The transfer of social housing assessments to the Ministry means that decisions about a person’s eligibility are now made independently of social housing providers.

Over the next year, our focus is on integrating housing needs assessment to form a more comprehensive view of a household’s needs, and better align tenancy management and other social support.

Creating a level playing field for social housing providers

As part of the reforms, approved Community Housing Providers who comply with regulatory standards are now eligible to receive a subsidy, allowing them to provide income-related rents to high-needs tenants and their families.

The extension of the subsidy beyond Housing New Zealand, along with the Ministry’s role as an independent assessor, creates a level playing field for social housing providers. It will also improve the range of housing available for people with specific requirements by subsidising niche market community providers that can provide wraparound services for tenants.

This is the first step for the Ministry to become an active purchaser of social housing services in order to better meet demand. We will develop this role by sending clearer signals to the market, for example by publishing non-personal information about the make-up of the social housing waitlist, so that those supplying social housing can see what is needed, and where, to meet people’s housing requirements.

Housing those in greatest need

The Government wants to ensure social housing is available for people and families most in need, for the time they need it.

As part of the Ministry’s new role, social housing tenants may be reviewed from 1 July 2014. Over the next year we will undertake approximately 800 tenancy reviews, focusing on those paying market rent, or close to it, in areas where private rental is readily available.

The Ministry will undertake these tenancy reviews with care and will consider each household’s individual circumstances. If a review finds that a tenant remains eligible, they will be able to stay in social housing.

Supporting people into housing independence

Where tenants can move into the private rental market, we will work closely with them to help them make this transition.

A new Housing Support Package will enable us to assist people where it is clear they could sustain private accommodation.

Strengthening communities through Investing in Services for Outcomes

We are driving positive results for individuals, families and communities by targeting funding to community providers that put the needs of people and communities at the centre.

The next four years

The Ministry invests over $570 million annually in social services provided by community organisations and NGOs. To ensure this funding makes a difference in communities we are improving the quality of services and the way we work with providers through Investing in Services for Outcomes (ISO).

More sharply focused investment in Ministry-funded providers will mean government funding is used more efficiently and effectively in the sector, with more providers working together to achieve the best possible outcomes for New Zealanders.

Strategic investment in communities

Through the ISO approach, services purchased for people and families will be co-ordinated and aligned with need, and outcomes will be more meaningfully tracked and evaluated to ensure our services are making a difference.

We will use a Strategic Investment Framework to guide the Ministry’s funding decisions about where, why and how we invest in communities – better linking funding for providers to outcomes for people.

Over the next year we will build on this framework by implementing an Investment Strategy. This will provide the social sector with a comprehensive picture of what social services the Ministry will purchase, aligned with government priorities and community need.

This strategy will support transparent allocation of funding to targeted areas and allow funding to shift to new priorities as required.

The Ministry will also implement a number of outcomes-focused contracting trials to learn what works best in which context and why, before applying these more widely with its funded providers.

We are working jointly with the Social Policy and Evaluation Research Unit (SuPERU)[5] on an Evaluation Strategy that will include guidance on effectiveness standards and outcomes measurement, and an evaluation schedule for providers.

Streamlining contracting

To help providers focus their effort on outcomes rather than administrative tasks, we will continue to streamline the way we contract with them.

We will ensure there is a consistent way of carrying out funding and contracting work that is both efficient and transparent. This will enhance accountability and stability for providers, communities and the Ministry. We will reduce unnecessary duplication of administration and reporting, meaning fewer compliance costs and better value for taxpayers.

The ISO Contracting Approach – one contract and one monitoring framework for Ministry-funded providers – has already reduced by 78 per cent the number of contracts with large providers who receive funding of over $1 million annually. Over the next year the Ministry will focus on reducing compliance and maximising efficiency for organisations receiving less than $1 million.

The administrative burden for providers will be further reduced through implementation of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s NGO Streamlined Contracting Framework. This will be fully integrated into the ISO Contracting Approach from 2014/2015 onwards.

[5] SuPERU is part of the Families Commission.

Enhancing provider capability

We are helping providers to become stronger, more adaptable and more sustainable so they are best placed to provide individuals, families and communities with the right services.

Over the next year we will expand the Organisational Capability Framework to support NGOs to become active partners in improving the effectiveness of their services. This will include focusing on organisational capability that concentrates on collaboration, innovation and the development of cross-sectorial learning – combined with an increased emphasis on working with outcomes.

We will also continue to use the Organisational Capability Self-Assessment Tool, Capability Investment Resource and Capability Mentors to enhance provider capability.

Strengthening Ministry capability

To support this we are building the capability of staff to create a more integrated approach to working with providers. A single Ministry-wide approvals framework will ensure that, no matter what part of the Ministry a provider contracts with, there is a consistent way in which they are assessed.

Strengthening fraud prevention and debt recovery

We are strengthening fraud prevention and debt recovery to ensure that social assistance only goes to those who are eligible and that applicants understand their obligations.

The next four years

The vast majority of people are honest in their dealings with the Ministry and follow the rules. However, there is a small minority that dishonestly obtain what they are not entitled to – at the expense of both themselves and New Zealand society.

Our priority over the next four years is to support people to do the right thing and make it difficult for people to defraud taxpayers. We are focusing on joining up with other agencies to prevent fraud and debt and to ensure those who entitled to our help receive it.

Implementing fraud reforms

Welfare assistance is a major form of public expenditure and New Zealanders expect us to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ funds.

We will implement new laws under the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Act that make spouses and partners, as well as beneficiaries, accountable for welfare fraud and dishonest overpayments.

The changes build on earlier fraud reforms that improve the Ministry’s ability to recover debt effectively and efficiently while enabling us to exercise discretion in managing recovery in individual cases. It also means that more government resources are available for people who are eligible and most in need.

Working more effectively with agencies to identify fraud

We are working across social sector agencies to take an all-of-government approach to address and identify fraud committed against the Government, and place those who have previously defrauded the welfare system under greater scrutiny.

We operate 11 different data matching agreements with seven government agencies to identify changes in people’s circumstances that may impact their Ministry of Social Development entitlements, such as people earning income through other avenues.

Information sharing between Inland Revenue and the Ministry so far has identified and stopped more than 5,000 illegitimate benefit payments.

We are aware that many people who commit fraud with benefits may also commit fraud with social housing. Through our new social housing role, we will work to ensure that people receive appropriate social housing according to their need.

Preventing people from getting into debt

We are working to prevent people from getting into debt in their dealings with the Ministry, which negatively impacts on their future life outcomes.

We will raise public awareness about welfare fraud and the consequences of doing the wrong thing. This will contribute towards preventing people getting into debt in the future.

Over the next four years, through the Debt Collection Strategy, we will take steps to increase the debt collection from former beneficiaries by automating business processes where appropriate and providing more effective communication of expectations to the debtors.

Enhancing our social sector leadership role and contribution

New Zealanders are increasingly expecting government agencies to work together in different ways to make services more accessible and make a bigger difference. The Ministry has an important role in leading and supporting more effective cross-sector governance and management arrangements to enable greater collective impact.

The next four years

Social sector agencies are continuing to change the way they work together, to provide more joined-up responses and co-ordinated services to get better results for individuals, families and communities.

The Government expects the Ministry to lead a number of these cross-agency developments. Over the next four years we will identify areas where we can enhance our leadership role to expand collaboration further across the social sector.

Our social sector strategy

To achieve the best results for New Zealanders, we are working across the sector to better align work programmes and resources and expand the scope of collaboration.

We will work alongside our sector colleagues to arrange services around the needs of individuals and families, including looking at who is best placed to deliver services – whether it is the Ministry, another agency or a local community or iwi provider – to achieve the best outcomes.

We will apply an ‘improvement methodology’ to our initiatives, which provides a framework for developing, testing and implementing changes to the services we deliver. This will help us to identify more quickly what works and what does not – allowing us to stop initiatives that do not provide results and scale up those that do.

Social Sector Forum priorities

Working with other agencies is intrinsic to the delivery of our outcomes. This co-ordination can best be illustrated through work done by cross-agency governance groups. The Social Sector Forum is the key mechanism by which agencies are doing this.

The Forum is chaired by the Ministry’s Chief Executive, and membership includes the Ministries of Justice, Education, Health, and Pacific Island Affairs, Te Puni Kōkiri, Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The Forum’s 2014/2015 priorities are to:

• reduce the number of people who have been on a Jobseeker Support benefit for more than 12 months
• increase participation in early childhood education
• increase infant immunisation rates and reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever
• reduce the number of assaults on children
• implement the Children’s Action Plan (led by the Vulnerable Children’s Board)
• deliver service innovations through the Social Sector Trials (led by the Joint Venture Board) and determine the future form of the Trials and other integrated delivery mechanisms
• focus on youth mental health
• deliver a single, simplified approach to contracting
• reduce the impact of family violence
• oversee the demonstration of Enabling Good Lives.

Over the next year, Social Sector Forum Chief Executives will also focus on taking two new approaches to combining collective information and resources:

• developing the future operating model for community-led service design and delivery. This work will look at how and when to use community-led approaches and how to transition existing pilots and trials including Social Sector Trials, to ‘business as usual’ in the future
• using data to understand people who require services from across the social sector and develop improved responses to their needs. This work will use the sector’s combined data to understand who we work with and how to deliver improved results for them.

Leading on behalf of government

We continue to look for ways to co-ordinate public sector effort as a whole and lead on behalf of the Government. We will link initiatives back to the Social Sector Forum.

We provide information, analysis, advice and support to the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families and its member agencies. The Taskforce provides advice to the Family Violence Ministerial Group, supported by the Māori Reference Group and the Pacific Advisory Group.

We administer the Office for Disability Issues and the Office for Senior Citizens. These offices promote and monitor the implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy respectively.

Our Chief Executive chairs the Chief Executives’ Group on Disability Issues. The Group supports the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues by leading the implementation of the Disability Action Plan.

Through the Youth Policy and Development Group, which includes the Ministry of Youth Development, we facilitate young people’s input into policy development across government. We will continue to provide young people with opportunities to participate in, and contribute to, this work including service design, by engaging with them and seeking their perspectives to inform decision-making.

Our Chief Executive is the functional lead for government property. Through the Property Management Centre of Expertise, we will lead and assist government agencies to meet the goals set by Government for the efficient and effective management of the Crown estate, by improving property management practices.

Working alongside the social sector to better integrate government services

We are working together with social sector agencies to trial new and innovative ways of delivering co-ordinated services at both national and local levels.

The next four years

To achieve the best results for New Zealanders, we will have a focus on trialling, learning from and embedding new ways of integrating services across different agencies.

By better integrating the services and functions we deliver internally, we will increase the effectiveness of our contribution to common social sector initiatives and outcomes.

Joining up services to protect vulnerable children

A key priority across the social sector is working better together to provide children with the best start in life and help young people transition successfully into adulthood.

The Children’s Action Plan will change the way agencies work to meet the objective of protecting our most vulnerable children and young people. Children’s Teams have been established to bring together professionals from across the sector to identify children at risk and wrap the right services around them.[6]

Addressing youth offending

Young people who commit offences should be held to account, but they also need the right support and interventions to address offending behaviour and turn their lives around.

We will continue to work with the Ministry of Justice and other agencies to implement the Youth Crime Action Plan – a 10-year strategy to prevent offending and reoffending behaviour in children and young people.

The Plan takes a practical approach to supporting youth justice services, frontline workers, service providers and volunteers. It builds upon existing initiatives such as the 2010 Fresh Start Reforms.

We will also continue to hold youth justice family group conferences so children and young people take responsibility for their offending and their family and victims can be involved in addressing their offending behaviour.

Together we will also address difficulties facing young offenders and their families, such as unemployment, limited ability for parents and families to provide appropriate support, and inter-generational problems.

[6.] The Children’s Action Plan is discussed in more detail on pages 17 – 19.

Social Sector Trials

Through the Social Sector Trials, the Ministry is working with the Ministries of Education, Health and Justice, and the New Zealand Police to improve social outcomes through community-based solutions.

Trials give an individual or an NGO the mandate to co- ordinate local programmes and services. The model aims to support decision-making at the local level, build on existing networks and strengthen the co-ordination of government services within communities.

Six initial Trials began in March 2011 to improve outcomes for 12 to 18-year-olds by reducing offending, truancy, and alcohol and other substance abuse, and increasing participation in education, training and employment. A further 10 Trials began in July 2013 to further test the model. The first six Trials have now been expanded to focus on 5 to 18-year-olds, which enables a greater focus on prevention and early intervention for these outcome areas.

The Ministry is providing support and resources to the Trials to ensure:

• active participation in advisory groups to develop and deliver on local action plans
• engagement with Trial Leads at a local, regional and national level so they are fully involved in decision- making and implementation where their community and outcome areas are relevant
• participation of Trials leadership in service design and delivery.

Youth One Stop Shops

Through Youth One Stop Shops (YOSS), we are working with the Ministry of Health to provide youth-friendly health care and social support for 40,000 to 50,000 young New Zealanders. A high proportion of these young people have interrelated health and social support needs.

We are allocating funding for the social support work done by YOSS and to support the sustainability of the network. The allocation of funding for social support for YOSS is a key cross-agency initiative under the Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project.

Cross-agency response to sexual violence

Providing high-quality, effective services is crucial to meet the immediate and long-term recovery needs of victims and survivors of sexual abuse.

We are working closely with other agencies to help the specialist sexual violence sector meet the needs of these victims and survivors. Through additional operating funding over the next two years, we will work to stabilise specialist sexual violence services to respond to increasing demand and service gaps.

Over the next two years we will work across the sector, with other government agencies and NGOs to develop a comprehensive long-term strategy, including a national approach to stop sexual violence from happening in the first place.

Information sharing to deliver better services

Government agencies are increasingly sharing their knowledge and expertise to improve the collective understanding of what services and support New Zealanders need.

We have established an information sharing programme to allow a co-ordinated and consistent approach to sharing, protecting and using cross-agency information.

We manage over 20 authorised information matching programmes and sharing agreements across government. We will look to expand these arrangements, as we work with the social sector to better integrate government services. For example, over the next year we will work with Inland Revenue to look at ways to streamline the interface between the tax and welfare systems to make it easier and more convenient for people to work with both agencies.

Building partnerships with communities

We are working in partnership with communities to help them find solutions so that more of New Zealand’s communities are strong and thriving.

The next four years

Effective long-term change is best driven by people who know their communities, understand the environment they are working in and have the tools they need to implement change.

We will build partnerships with communities to help them identify issues and enhance their capability to find community-based solutions by involving them in decisions that affect individuals and families.

Involving communities in decision-making

We will continue to look for innovative ways to involve communities in decision-making about what works best in their area.

The Ministry’s 12 Community Response Model Forums are bringing people from across the community, regional government agencies and iwi to work together to determine what does and does not work and what can improve in order to address the needs of their community.

Through Make It Happen Te Hiku, communities in the Far North were given a blank sheet of paper to come up with a plan for effective social spending in Kaitaia and the wider district. This is allowing families to have their voices heard about what is most important for their community to improve social outcomes.

Over the next year, we will work with the Far North community to develop an effective governance structure and representation for the initiative. Over the next three years, the governance group of community representatives will lead the development of an implementation plan to address priorities identified in the Make It Happen Te Hiku community action plans. A Collective Impact Strategy Group, comprising representatives of Chief Executives from participating government agencies, will also be established to support the development of the implementation plan.

Working with the disabled community

Working alongside the disabled community, we are committed to cross-agency efforts to remove barriers and build opportunities for disabled people, so they can actively participate in society and their communities.

The Ministry is changing the way it works with disabled people’s organisations to ensure disabled people are involved in developing policy and service changes that affect them.

Over the next year we will expand the Enabling Good Lives approach into Waikato, with the support of the health and education sectors. This builds on the demonstration in Christchurch, which has been co-designed with a Local Advisory Group with the involvement of disabled people, families and providers.

This approach seeks to change the disability support system to deliver a more flexible and tailored approach, where the disabled person and their family have greater choice and control over the support they receive and the lives they lead. It emphasises building community support and focusing on achieving ordinary life outcomes.

The Think Differently campaign is a key initiative of the Government’s Disability Action Plan and aims to increase participation of disabled people in all aspects of community life. The campaign contributes to national initiatives and through the Making a Difference Fund supports small community projects to change the attitudes and behaviours that limit opportunities for disabled people.

Working with communities to respond to family violence

We will help communities to create safe environments for children and families and encourage people to take action when they know violence is happening.

We will support families affected by family violence by providing services and support that help to restore safety and wellbeing and create long-term changes that prevent violence from reoccurring.

We will maintain a strong commitment to the community-driven initiatives to address family violence, including:

• the It’s not OK campaign to change attitudes and behaviours that tolerate any kind of family violence
• E Tu Whānau to work directly with whānau, hapū and iwi to support community action against violence, with an emphasis on traditional Māori values as the foundation for change
• the Pasefika Proud campaign to encourage Pacific communities to take ownership of the issue of violence.

Helping young people contribute positively to their communities

We are working with young people to increase their capability and provide opportunities for them to contribute positively to their communities.

We will continue to encourage central and local government and other agencies to align their work programmes to ensure we are achieving good outcomes for young people. For example, we are currently working with the Auckland Agencies for Youth, Waikato Intersect and Collaboration Bay of Plenty.

We will ensure there is a diverse representation of young people’s perspectives that contribute to government agencies’, and other organisations’ decision-making. For example through Youth Parliament, we are providing an opportunity for young people to have their views heard by key decision makers and the general public.

Over the next three years we will provide support for expanding Youth Enterprise initiatives, including making greater use of experts who provide professional development, leadership, support and mentoring to youth in the area of business studies and enterprise.

Helping seniors maintain independence and participate in society

We are working with NGOs and government agencies to improve outcomes for older people in New Zealand so they can remain independent, mobile and connected. This includes a work programme across government agencies to improve older people’s access to relevant services, including health care, transport, housing and other social services.

We will continue to promote the Business of Ageing research on the economic contribution of older people. This shows that older people are making a significant contribution to the economy as workers, consumers and volunteers.

Raising awareness of elder abuse and neglect and what people can do in response continues to be a priority for the Ministry. Initiatives include increasing awareness of enduring powers of attorney through an information campaign and further work with Age Concern to understand demand for specialist services related to elder abuse and neglect prevention.

We are tackling social isolation by expanding the SuperGold Card programme, rolling out the learning from the Napier Connects initiative and developing policy options to address social isolation through service delivery.

In February 2014 the Minister for Senior Citizens launched the New Zealand Carers’ Strategy and Action Plan 2014-2018. Early initiatives are focused on increasing information about respite care and expanding carer learning and wellbeing resources.