EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Chairman, with the current rate at $11 per hour, a single mother, for example, working at minimum wage would make a little less than $23,000 per year.
With the daycare subsidy provided by the Department of Family Services, it says that the program is means tested. What is the maximum funding available to someone working minimum wage under the daycare subsidy?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Minister Ugyuk.
I would like Brandon Grant to come to the witness table. He is in charge of income support and daycare subsidies.
Chairman (interpretation): Do my colleagues agree to allow the witness to the witness table?
Chairman (interpretation): Sergeant-at-Arms, can you please escort the witness to the witness table?
Minister Ugyuk, can you introduce your official? Minister Ugyuk.
This is Brandon Grant who is the Director of Income Support and Daycare Subsidies.
Mr. Hickes, you can resume asking your question.
To repeat it, basically what I’m looking at is what time of funding is provided as the example I used, a single parent, for the daycare subsidy if they are working at minimum wage which the income provided out of that is less than $23,000 per year.
Brandon Grant will respond to that.
Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Grant.
Mr. Grant: As the member has stated, Mr. Chair, our program is means tested so the way that the program works is interested applicants that are interested in applying for our daycare subsidy must fill out paperwork that is completed by our regional office staff. They go through an assessment based on a number of factors including their income but also what sort of courses they would like to take, what sort of employment, and it is provided through the assessment process as to what the might be eligible for.
In terms of the specific numbers, I don’t have what that particular person might be eligible for in front of me.
I appreciate the level of detail not being immediately available but I appreciate if maybe I could be provided with that a little down the road.
Mr. Chairman, along the same line of questioning, what is the income threshold where this subsidy would not be available to a single parent?
I would like Mr. Grant to respond to that, too.
Mr. Grant.
Mr. Grant: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I had a hard time hearing but I think the question was what other supports the person might receive. No?
If I could get the member to repeat the question.
My apologies if I wasn’t clear.
What I’m looking at is what is the income threshold were someone would cease to have access to this program?
Mr. Grant will respond to that.
Again each case is different in terms of the threshold I can provide those figures to the member but it is usually based on a variety of factors in terms of the assessment process.
I can follow up with any specific answers for the member.
I’m not 100 percent sure if this is the proper place to ask this question, so please rule me out of order if it’s not.
Earlier on in this sitting, I asked a question of the minister regarding the Poverty Reduction Fund.
At that time, I had asked who is going to be contributing dollars to that fund and what is the anticipated budget for it.
At the time the minister responded that she would provide an answer when she knew the proper information in terms of dollars because she didn’t have the numbers at her fingertips as she was quoted at the time.
That was on May 29, Mr. Chairman. I wonder if she has those numbers at her fingertips now.
When you asked me that question at the session whether what kind of funding there would be there has not been anything contributed to it yet. It’s going to run under a contribution program.
Is there an anticipated budget for that project?
I would like the Finance Director, David Kolot, to respond to that please.
In answer to the hon. member’s question, funds for poverty reduction fall under the poverty reduction section. Within that section we have dollars that we have allocated for contract services in the amount of $322,000, purchased services in the amount of $17,000, materials and supplies in the amount of $60,000, with $213,000 for travel and transportation.
That’s the total funds that are available for all of the initiatives related to poverty reduction.
Within those funds we would look at expending dollars for the question you have asked.
In the priorities in the business plan on page 119, it talks about reviewing the income assistance program yet it says it’s not looking at implementing any new increases or potential increases until 2015 in the business plan.
As we all know, the level of expense of the cost of living is increasing all the time.
Is this a firm timeline for the minister’s department to review the income assistance program and look at potential increases to help cover the cost of living?
Please keep mentioning what page your question is based on.
Thank you for the request for clarification.
As to when the review will take place and your request for information on food prices, I would like the deputy minister to respond to that.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Some of our responses yesterday and some of the things we said yesterday about the review of poverty touches… your question will be part of the review and I would like everyone to know that the last time there was an increase in income support it was 15 percent in 2011. This will be reviewed.
It would be good, if it’s okay with the minister; if I can ask the Members of the Legislative Assembly to tell us which aspects of our department you would like looked at. Please ask us to do so.
I hope I’m not stepping on one of my colleague’s toes, I don’t see him in here. A number of us have brought up the issue of abuse of the Income Support Program. There are a lot of concerns around the territory that these funds aren’t being utilized to maximum effect.
Yet I’m looking at the program compliance component of the business plan on page 117 where it has $240,000 allocated to facilitate consistency and enhance program effectiveness and accountability.
That number is a little over half of 1 percent of the money that is expended under Income Support Program.
Is this consistent with other jurisdictions from the audit side of things?
I thank Mr. Hickes for that question. David Kolot will answer that.
In terms of is this consistent with what other jurisdictions are doing, I can’t answer that question.
I think I missed the first part of the question, if you could repeat it.
Can you repeat your question, Mr. Hickes.
He more or less answered what I was looking at at the moment.
Now, on average, how many audits are done on file to make sure that they are handled appropriately?
I would like Mr. Grant to answer Mr. Hickes’ question.
To answer your question, there’s a number of ways in which we ensure that programs comply within our program.
One of the things that you’ll see is our top priority for this year and for next year is the implementation of our case management system.
This will allow us to have better information in real-time to ensure that we’re able to follow up on any irregularities, any issues within our program. Currently, we conduct compliance every single day with our staff at the directorate office.
We have a number of controls in place to ensure that we’re able to follow up with our communities that are in the manual environment by interacting with us through a variety of different checks within our program.
We also conduct community-based audits. Since I’ve started, we’ve conducted an audit at our Iqaluit office. We’re going to be proceeding over the next year to do those community-based audits across the territory.
The biggest thing to improve our compliance within our program, and the reason why it is our top priority is the case management system that will allow us to track our expenditures, identify areas where there might be irregularities and follow up a lot quicker than we could in the manual environment.
I thank Mr. Grant for that response.
One of the things that I’m sure concerns a lot of us is making sure that the funds are allocated to people that are truly in need.
What does your department do to make sure that all income is reported from people that are on social assistance?
Obviously, we always try to ensure that the people in need are served. We have a big program, we serve a lot of people in the territory every single day.
To ensure that they are in compliance, as I mentioned before, that we’re implementing our case management system so that we can track our expenditures better and follow up on any irregularities.
At the same time, to promote self-reliance, we also ensure that we’re writing the cheques out to third-party vendors.
We also, in cases where a client requests it, we also change the cash amount so that people can make choices around what they purchase.
We’re not policing what people spend their money on in terms how they spend their social assistance. We don’t have the staff capacity to do that, but when we do know there are irregularities, there’s a process in place that we follow up to ensure that the taxpayers’ money is being spent appropriately.
I’m sure the minister can describe some of the plans and practices that her department is doing to help people go off social assistance and enter the workforce.
I will have Brandon Grant, Director of Income Support, answer this one.
To answer the question, one of the great advantages of the new Department of Family Services is that career development is within our department. Over the next year, we will be working closely with our Career Development Division to ensure that we are linking people to careers that fit their skills and hopefully exit people out of the Social Assistance Program whenever possible.
Our plans over the next year are to link strongly with our Career Development Division and find opportunities where social assistance and career development can work together to build stronger linkages so that people can get into jobs and get off of social assistance.
With your indulgence, I’m going to backtrack a little bit to the program compliance.
Like I stated, the amount of dollars that are budgeted for in that division are a little over half of 1 percent of the overall money that gets spent on income support programs. Is that money sufficient to make sure that the audit function of people’s files is confirming that monies are allocated appropriately?
I thank my colleague for asking this question in relation to the appropriateness of the income that is being handed out.
There are a great number of communities that receive these things by way of letters.
The use of the Internet will speed things up a lot. The use of online and direct payments.
Many communities are still in the paper age, whereas everybody else is in the computerized age.
The Director of Income support could probably answer this better in detail.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, if you don’t mind.
The minister touched on a really important point. The implementation of our case management system will allow us to better serve our clients and better understand what is going on in terms of the expenditures in a lot faster time.
Most of our communities are still in the manual environment, which creates challenges.
As a top priority for our division, we have identified the implementation and deployment of our case management system so that we can better track our expenditures and ensure that the program is operating properly and having better audit capacity as well. That is a critical component, our case management system, to get it deployed to as many communities as possible over the next year and into the future so that we can have the entire territory on our case management system, which will improve our program compliance and audit abilities.
Following my list, Ms. Angnakak.
I would like to go to business plan 117 where it talks about the social assistance appeal board.
I wanted to know who makes up the appeal board, first of all, representation.
Those who wish to take part are given to cabinet and they make the selection.
Does every community have their own appeal board or is there one appeal board in Nunavut?
There are three regional centres.
They are included in these appeal boards. There is only one appeal board.
We have no community appeal boards separate from this appeal board.
How many times does the appeal board meet in a year in each of the regions?
I thank the member, my colleague, for this question.
In relation to this, perhaps I was not clear. There is one appeal board each and these are single.
In relation to the appeal board, Mr. Grant will expand on this further.
The social assistance appeal process functions the following way.
There are two levels of appeal.
We are in the process now of creating the first level of appeal which is a territory-wide first level of appeal that hears the appeals as they come in for the first round.
Then we have a territorial second level of appeals board that hears any appeals that the client is not satisfied by the ruling of the first level of appeal. On average, we receive about one appeal that comes through a month.
That is the average that we see in terms of appeals for our program.
My next question about that is what is a typical appeal? Is there a typical appeal?
What is the most common area of complaint that you receive?
I would like the Director of Income Support to answer this.
That is a really interesting question. I thank the member for that.
What I have seen, since I have been here, the most common appeal that we get is around our budget surplus situation. When a client goes over the income threshold, has what we consider income that makes them ineligible for social assistance, those are the most common that I have seen since I have been the director of the division.
Those are the most common appeals that I have seen so far.
If I can ask the minister, and maybe she can direct it to her staff again, if somebody comes in applying for income support but maybe they had a job a couple weeks ago but were laid off.
Is this the kind of additional income that you would be looking at for that month that would maybe go against them getting that income support?
Minister Ugyuk…
I would like that responded to by Mr. Grant.
What I’ve seen is types of income that comes that would put a person in a budget surplus situation. It varies; sometimes it could be one-time lump sum like an income tax return that comes in, or it’s an NCBS payment that is not exempt under our program.
There are all sorts of different scenarios that could happen that might put a person in a budget surplus situation.
It could also be winnings from a variety of different elements like a fishing derby or other things like that.
Lump sums of income that would be coming over a period during the assessment period that could put a person in a budget surplus situation.
There is a variety of different reasons why it might happen. So far, from what I have seen, NCBS, income tax returns sometimes put people in budget surplus situations.
What we do as staff is we try to ensure that we make it clear for our clients about what our program is and how it works so that they’re clear on how the program works and what situations might put them in a budget surplus situation.
We always try to ensure that we’re clear about the decision and walk the client through the decision and how it was made. That is one of the things that we’ve identified in the business plan is to continue with our education so that people across the territory know about our program, know how it works and know about eligibility and so on so that there’s no confusion.
I like to ask the department: how do you usually find out about this additional income? Is it because the client has volunteered that information, or are there other ways that as a department, you find out about this other income coming in?
When a client first applies for social assistance, it’s nearly impossible to determine if their application will be approved. When you do apply for social assistance, you do have to agree to disclose all your sources of income and social assistance clients do know that requirement.
I would like Mr. Grant to further clarify that question.
Our workers have a number of ways in which we’re able to verify income.
Every client must sign a statutory declaration stating that the client will be truthful, but also they have requirements within our program to bring forth bank statements so that we’re able to verify income through that way.
Any pay stubs, bills that they accrue and also we verify with employers.
If somebody states that they were working, we always ensure that we follow up with employers. As well, we’re able to verify information on EI. If a client is eligible for other programs, we’re able to help and assist clients to apply to other programs.
They have a number of obligations that the clients that come in and verify their income for us.
This ensures that our workers are able to check and make sure that the information that they’re providing is accurate so that we can make proper assessments.
How do you deal with a situation and do you still have those same rights to look into someone’s information if they come and say they haven’t had any income?
Let’s say they’re not forthcoming with the information.
As a department then do you still have the right to go and check for example you were saying employment insurance or whatever. As a department do you have the right to make those assessments if the client has said, “Nope. I don’t have any income coming in this month.”
My colleague is asking the question how we check the income when the client is not forthcoming.
The clients have to sign an oath and the income support workers are given a number so that they can see the appointments.
I’ll ask the Director of Income Support to respond.
The minister touched on some points where the clients have an obligation to sign a number of legal documents to state that we are able to take measures to verify their income.
Our clients have an obligation to be truthful and they have an obligation to bring forward any supporting documentation for their assessment including pay stubs, bank statements and proof of bills as well, power bills and so forth.
We have measures in place to verify that information that clients have signed a statement of authorization, an oath, so that we can check into that information as much as we can.
Thank you for that answer. I appreciate that.
I guess my colleague, Mr. Hickes, was talking about what kind of measures were in place to get clients off of this program.
I am wondering how easy it is to get on this program.
If I understood my colleague’s question, how easy it is to get on the income support assistance program.
Income support means that you use it as your last resort. But according to the policy and we provide income support.
We are going to be reviewing the policy and I will request for support from the members.
I’ll ask the director of income support to respond to that question. Thank you.
The minister touched on a number of great points. Obviously the program review will look at a variety of different things including eligibility criteria.
What I would say is that anyone looking for support, and again as the minister stated, it’s a program of last resort. We help people in very difficult situations.
They have a number of obligations that they have to do before they can receive social assistance including providing all the documentation that I have talked about previously as well as ID cards, HCP cards, SIN cards, there are a variety of other supporting documentation that go into an assessment process before they can come on to social assistance. It’s not like people can walk through the door and people are on social assistance at the snap of the finger.
There is a process in place in which people are assessed and they have to provide supporting documentation before they can become recipients of social assistance.
Can the minister tell us what is the most common reason why people go on social assistance?
It seems self-evident. It’s because of unemployment.
I think this whole aspect of social assistance and those on it has raised some concern.
I think you’re right, I agree with you, when people can’t find employment or they have no other means then they need some help.
I think what I want to touch on a little bit is; I think we all know of some people that are on social assistance that perhaps could be working but choose not to work or perhaps they could be volunteering somewhere or going to school.
These other things that we could be helping people to help themselves to get off of social assistance.
What, as a department, are you doing to encourage this?
When somebody isn’t working when they could be volunteering or going to school, do you turn a blind eye to that or is it something that you address with the client?
I would also like to thank the member for talking about this.
We use the policy and we provide income support using the policy.
As long as we don’t change the policy I’m sure it’s going to remain the same.
But we know that it is better to get off of income support.
It’s better to make your own money and take care of your family and children.
It’s better to be in the workforce and support ourselves.
Nothing states in the legislation or policy.
That’s all I can respond.
Thank you, minister, for that.
I guess we would like to see the changes happen in the legislation, the review and all that.
I’m confused to about the growing need of applicants for the income support program.
But at the same time for those that truly need it, it seems that the amount provided to families seems to be inadequate. We have a lot of people going for emergency money.
I guess if you have an emergency and you don’t have any money.
I’m wondering, are you guys reviewing the rates at any time soon?
In the document Sivumut Abluqta when we had a meeting in Kugaaruk as a cabinet. We talked about social assistance clients.
When we went to Kugluktuk that day, we decided that we would review income support.
We weren’t really sure exactly which parts of the policy would be reviewed.
The director said that he wanted an answer Ms. Angnakak’s question.
I just wanted to clarify, too, that all clients must enter what’s called a productive choice agreement to be eligible for social assistance, and continue to be eligible. What a productive choice agreement is, there are a variety of categories: one is to seek out employment, and others could to seek counselling. Parenting is also a productive choice as well as attending school.
So to remain eligible for social assistance, they must go through the assessment process every month and provide updates on how they’re doing, in terms of pursuing their productive choice.
So that’s one of the areas where I think we can make improvements on to really find ways to partner with our fellow division within Family Services and Career Development. To find ways in which we can link stronger so that people with certain skills are met with jobs that are available in the communities.
It’s one of the things that we’re going to be working on over the next year so that we can strengthen how we use those productive choices and monitoring them long-term with our clients.
I agree with you. I think you need to have some kind of assessment, but at the same time, especially in Iqaluit, I’m sure in the other communities, we all have experienced the fact that someone coming to us in the workplace and say, “Can you stamp this? I’m looking a job.
No, I don’t have a job. Can you stamp this?” It just seems to be a silly exercise to be going through.
Perhaps we should be looking more at not only paying jobs, but there is a lot of work needed in our communities that are voluntary, but you learn a lot from them, and you make the contracts.
You learn how to integrate with the public. You learn how to do different skills. I think there is some real merit to that.
I would hope that in your future reviews, I would like to see that you look toward those kinds of things. Even working with elders. There is a lot of need.
We’ve talked in the House many times about the care for elders, and there are different things that could be done.
I am going to go on to something else now in regard to senior citizens. You have the Senior Citizens Supplementary Benefit, and that’s a Co-Management Payment Program. Can you explain how this program works?