Bakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 20 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16181. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to theMinister of Finance: How is the Government’s focus on Better Public Service results improving New Zealanders’ lives while helping New Zealand’s long-term fiscal position?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): As the House will know the Government announced at the beginning of last year a number of results that it wants to achieve with Better Public Services and it publishes updates on those results every 6 months so that the public can hold the Government to account for achieving better communities. The Better Public Services results for the last 6 months to the end of 2013 were released today. They show that focusing public services on specific objectives is beginning to show gains for individual New Zealanders and their families particularly those who are most vulnerable. What we are finding is that making progress with for instance increasing immunisation rates protecting vulnerable children and improving educational achievement is in the long run good for the Government’s books but more important good for communities. The latest results show that 91 percent of babies are now fully immunised by 8 months for instance and they are on target for 95 percent by the end of this year. That is just one example where the results are way in excess of what the normal expectations of public services were in the past.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What progress has there been in some of the other Better Public Services results?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There have been results where there has been good progress and other results where we have not yet made significant progress. But one area where we are making progress is the target of reducing long-term welfare dependency by 30 percent by 2017. More effort is going in upfront to get people off benefits and particularly more efforts to prevent young people going on benefits. We know that 70 percent of the future cost of the benefit system relates to people who first went on a benefit aged under 20. So as a result of more focused case management and growing job opportunities we are seeing a reduction in long-term welfare dependency.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Are all Better Public Services results on track to be achieved?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the published assessment shows if a result is not on track to be achieved it would be marked by a traffic-light system as red. Result No. 4 which is reducing assaults on children has seen an increase in the number of substantiated cases of physical abuse. However we believe that the figures may reflect a greater percentage of cases being reported rather than a greater number of cases actually occurring. This of course is a first step towards reducing the number of assaults on children. It is important that people speak up when they have concern forchildren’s welfare even though that might make the Government target a bit more difficult to meet.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: As part of the Better Public Services programme are other ways of improving results to help achieve the targets being considered?Hon BILL ENGLISH: One of the strengths of the Better Public Services results is that it encourages departments and agencies to go and find others who can help them achieve their objectives. For instance the Department of Corrections has a target of reducing reoffending because every prisoner who goes back to the prison system is very expensive. It is working with Housing New Zealand providing prisoners to refurbish at least 150 State houses over the next 5 years. The benefits both for Housing New Zealand and for prisoners who need skills are pretty obvious. Yesterday the housing Minister Nick Smith set a programme to fast track into State houses those families with children at risk of rheumatic fever. It will be rolled out across most of the North Island. Combating rheumatic fever is another Better Public Services target. So health and education officials are working with housing officials to reduce the incidence of this Third World disease.