Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in this debate. I would like just to focus on something that Jacinda Ardern mentioned. When we talk about social services especially the modern Government's approach to social services you cannot go past discussing the social investment approach. The one word that pops into everybody's mind—or into mine certainly when I am looking at the social investment approach—is the word juxtaposition". There is no more blatant definite and palpable example of the Government's juxtaposition between what it says in regard to the social investment approach—what it says the reasoning is behind the social investment approach—versus what actually happens and what it does.In the Ministry of Social Development's annual report the intent of the social investment approach is stated everywhere. It states that "Building a social investment approach … is about applying rigorous and evidence-based investment practices to the development purchase and delivery of social services so decisions can be made that improve the lives of New Zealanders." That all sounds well and good and we would agree with that if that was the actual case but the fact is that it is not.It goes on to list a number of the works that the ministry is working towards in regard to the outcomes and one of them is "More people into sustainable work and out of welfare dependency". One of the programmes that the ministry and the Government are using to get their young people and youth off the benefit and avoid them being State-dependent is the Youth Service. If you take into account what I have just quoted about what the intent of the social investment approach is and what the Government says the social investment approach is about and then just read—do the basic research and reading and evidence-finding in the report from Treasury which was released only earlier this year about the success or not of the Youth Service—these are just fundamental things about what the intent of the Youth Service was. It was about educational participation. The report did not find any significant change in the likelihood of staying in school for these young people through this Youth Service through the social investment approach into this Youth Service.Talking about time spent on benefits: in fact it found that there was slightly more time spent on benefits by these young people using the social investment approach to fund this programme. It said that participation in the Youth Service was associated with higher rather than lower benefit receipt in the following 2 years with the impact on benefit rates increasing through that time. It actually found a negative impact on employment rates: "The limited impact of [the Youth Service] on qualification attainment is the most likely reason for the programme's lack of labour market benefits."In conclusion the report says that "The programme did not raise participants' employment rates and their benefit receipt rates were slightly raised rather than lowered." But here is the kicker—here is the sentence that is the absolute juxtaposition of what the Government is saying the social investment approach is: "Prior international research on the impacts of youth mentoring programmes has found that they either have no impacts or small … effects on academic achievement." This is all based on the social investment approach and it is the social investment approach that is failing. Yet this Government and the Prime Minister and the Minister have said that this entire Budget coming up is based on the social investment approach.One of the programmes that the Government is going to be reinvesting in is the Family Start programme. This is just yet another example of saying one thing and doing another. They say that—and this is the evaluation of that programme that it is going to reinvest in—"We find no statistically measurable impact … on participation in the B4 School Check. A concerning finding is an estimated reduction in enrolment with a primary health organisation at age 1". This is before they have made any sorts of decisions to reinvest in this programme.Lastly out of this report an evaluation of the before school checks: "By the nature of our data we are restricted to examining outcomes that are captured in administrative records. Administrative data currently offer few direct measures of children's cognition parenting behaviours and attitudes or the home environment. This means that our study captures only a subset of programme impacts that are of interest." Yet this Government is investing more under the guise of social investment and it has proven to be a failure."