Bayly Andrew: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBayly Andrew: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1896. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Finance: What are the features of the new social investment approach the Government will use in Budget 2015 and in future Budgets?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The social investment approach is an extension of the way this Government has operated in the social sector for a while—for instance with the investment approach to welfare and the formation of Children’s Teams. Now we are making it part of the Budget process as well. What we are talking about here is using the best information available to understand which people where need our services the most whether the current interventions are actually helping those people or undermining their resilience and testing whether with different interventions we can do a better job of getting results for our families and communities. For too long Governments have measured success in respect of the social needs of our population by how much money they spend rather than by what results they achieve.Andrew Bayly: How will changes through the social investment approach benefit New Zealanders who rely on public services?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In the first place it requires a much better understanding of the individual and unique needs of those who use our public services—for instance now we can understand the achievement progress of every single child in our primary schools. As a result of the welfare liability we have a much richer understanding of which people are on a benefit for a long time and the reasons for it. As a result of our social housing reforms we already have a much better understanding of the needs and aspirations of State house tenants and also of those people who are waiting for a State house. So those people are all going to benefit from the Government having a better understanding of what their needs are and therefore more capacity to meet those needs.Andrew Bayly: How is this new approach related to the Government’s Better Public Services programme and will providers come only from the Public Service?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is directly related to our Better Public Services programme because that is all about achieving meaningful results. If I can use a couple of examples. There has now been some improvement in hospital admissions due to rheumatic fever a disease we should not have in New Zealand. Achieving those results has involved both the Public Service and non-governmental organisations in a much more cooperative effort to identify those at-risk populations and take action. Another is our efforts to reduce recidivism. In respect of the new prison to be opened in Auckland actually we are paying not for rehabilitation programmes but for actual reductions in recidivism. The private organisation running that prison will work with iwi and the public sector to achieve less recidivism.Andrew Bayly: How will the social investment approach help deliver better fiscal results for the Government?Hon BILL ENGLISH: This is a Government that believes that what works for the community is what works for the Government’s books. So every time we keep a teenager on track to stay at school long enough to get a qualification or have one more person pulled off the track of long-term welfare dependency we get an immediate saving of course an immediate benefit for those individuals and for the community and a long-term saving in taxpayers’ money.