Upston Louise; Sepuloni CarmelHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I don't think that that answer was actually addressed satisfactorily. When we talk about illegal expenditure and whether or not the department told the Minister in a timely manner and of course—so if the Minister doesn't think that's a significant issue we'll leave it there.The other area is the five of the eight outcome indicators as agreed by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that are trending downwards and so I'm interested in the Minister's response in terms of the performance for MSD particularly with a blowout in benefit dependency. One is the average time beneficiaries spend on welfare and that has gone out from 10.7 years to 12.8. Again in the hearings the Minister didn't seem to be concerned about that. I'd like the Minister to explain to the committee what actions have been taken to reduce New Zealanders' time on benefit and what is being done that actually starts turning around the benefit dependency crisis or does she not think it's an issue?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): We currently have about 11 percent of our working-age population that are on benefit. We had Treasury forecasting that due to the pandemic we would reach almost 490000 people on benefit. We never reached that number because of the investment that we put into employment programmes for New Zealanders particularly over the course of the pandemic period. That included the $18 billion invested into wage subsidy to make sure that we saved jobs. The main area that we need to look at with regards to addressing long-term welfare dependency is how much we support people so that they don't need to come on benefit and they get the employment support that they need right at the beginning of benefit. We know that the evidence shows us that it is easier to support someone into employment when they've just come on benefit. We moved quickly with our rapid response programme when COVID hit to be able to support those who came on benefit to take up work straight away. We've also invested heavily into upskilling and training programmes and we've seen huge success there: over 5000 people in Mana in Mahi; over 50000 I believe in Apprenticeship Boost; we've seen around 25000 in Flexi-wage; and the list goes on with regards to the employment programmes that are in place.We've also reinstated the Training Incentive Allowance and we've seen just under 5000 mostly sole parents take up that opportunity. That means for that particular group they are still on benefit but they are being supported to get into meaningful study that will support their future employment prospects.It is about working with those that are on benefit to be able to equip them support them to get the pre-employment support they need and the upskilling and training that they need to be able to go on the jobs that are available. I actually think it's very clear that this Government has been focused on that and made the investments that are necessary in this space. So I'm very confident that we have made investments in upskilling and training and employment.Alongside the things that I've mentioned I also do want to note that when we took office there wasn't actually ring-fenced money or support for employment for people that were on benefit. Year on year we have increased the number of front-line staff who are providing work-focused case management to clients. I'm really proud of that. It was needed and so clearly we are focused on upskilling training and employment.