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Vulnerable families and young New Zealanders will benefit from a new approach to the delivery of social services with a $275 million boost to Vote Social Investment, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says.
“The centrepiece of the Social Investment Budget package is a new $190 million Social Investment Fund that will make carefully targeted investments designed to improve the lives of New Zealanders in need.
“The Fund is about more than new money. It’s about Government investing earlier, smarter and with much more transparent measurement of the impact interventions are having for the people they are designed to help.
“The Fund will invest in services that deliver measurable improvements in people’s lives, guided by data and evidence. It will support both new approaches and strengthen existing services that work, to improve the Government’s return on investment and change vulnerable people’s lives for the better.
“Over the next year the fund will invest in at least 20 initiatives, using a completely different contracting approach than that traditionally used by Government agencies.
“Each initiative will have robust evaluation built into it from the start, so that its impact can be tracked.
“The Government is already investing around $7 billion each year buying social services from non-government agencies. Despite this, we know too many New Zealanders remain trapped in cycles of inter-generational dysfunction. Communities, NGOS and iwi all tell us they could have much more impact in people’s lives if the Government was smarter about the way it selects, contracts, and monitors the social services we fund.
“The Fund will start relatively small and grow over time as it proves itself, setting up the infrastructure for large scale delivery of integrated contracts with support from the social sector.
“The Fund will be the catalyst for improving the way Government works with communities to drive social impact.
“Over the next two to three years, I expect to see significant amounts of funding transferred from current social services to the Social Investment Fund as communities and providers develop new approaches to working with government.”
As part of the $275 million, the Budget also provides:
$20 million for programmes that strengthen parenting in the first 2000 days of a child’s life, reducing harm and setting children up for better long-term outcomes; and
$25 million to help prevent children and vulnerable adults from entering state care, as part of the Crown’s response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.
Note for editors
The first three initiatives funded by the Social Investment Fund are:
Autism New Zealand’s early screening and intervention programme that provides services and support for family/whānau, caregivers and professionals.
Ka Puta Ka Ora Emerge Aotearoa’s evidence-based approach to tackling youth offending and truancy that will help at least 80 families each year to address youth offending and truancy; and
The He Piringa Whare programme with Te Tihi o Ruahine an alliance of nine hapū, iwi, Māori organisations and providers that will support 130 families at a time with a wraparound service that delivers stable housing, education, training and employment, and other services