Ross Jami-Lee: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoss Jami-Lee: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:476. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany)to the Minister of Finance: What Budget approach is the Government taking to ensure that New Zealanders in genuine need receive targeted and effective support through public services?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):The Government is building on its approach of the past 6 years which has focused on delivering for people better results from public services and targeting spending on its services where we can get a return from effective delivery. During our first term we capped the public sector head count reprioritised spending towards front-line services and extracted an efficiency dividend from the public sector. In our second term the Better Public Services programme started to deliver measurable results in meeting some of New Zealand’s most challenging issues. The introduction of the investment approach to welfare has demonstrated a marked improvement in Government decision-making and policy delivery and reduced welfare dependency. We intend to build further on this and other programmes.Jami-Lee Ross: How will the Government’s approach to delivering better public services be reflected in its preparation of Budget 2015?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Budget 2015 will involve continued restraint in Government spending and the Government is bringing in a set of tools that demonstrate that what works for our communities—what makes them safer and better educated for instance—also works for the Government’s books. As the Prime Minister has confirmed one of the Government’s priorities for this term will be helping children and families in material deprivation and hardship. In particular the Government will focus on children and their families at risk of poor education; criminal justice; and employment results. Many of these families are not well served by current public service arrangements. This will require extra resources for initiatives that focus on children and their families in need and achieving results for them. The Government expects this will require a combination of some new investment but also significant reprioritising of money from existing spending that does not work.Jami-Lee Ross: What specific steps will the Government take in preparing Budget 2015 to ensure initiatives focus on delivering better results for New Zealanders in need?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Social sector agencies will work to extend and further evolve the investment approach that the Government has developed over recent years. This will include identifying solutions for the most at-risk groups who need individualised assistance based on their local and family circumstances; recognising and challenging the effectiveness of existing spending and policy delivery involving children and families communities and providers and developing these solutions; and expanding ideas based on data across public agencies which tell us where these families are when they need help and which ones need investment in them. We plan to have an open working relationship with external providers academics community groups and others who use public services.Jami-Lee Ross: What will be the next steps in the Government’s focus on delivering better services and support for the most at-risk children and their families?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Through the Government tender system the Government is issuing a request for information to help target spending on social services and get better results for children and their families who are most at risk. This is the next step in a process that will see ongoing involvement of social service providers front-line staff and communities. In particular we want to help those most at risk and the hardest-to-reach New Zealanders. So Treasury will go out to a range of groups seeking feedback on how existing services work how they can be improved and how they can be better targeted.Marama Fox: Does the Minister agree with the chief economic adviser for Allianz that unless developed nations hike minimum wage rates income inequality will continue to engulf those economies; if so what initiatives will he take to lift the minimum wage and ensure outcomes are improved for New Zealanders in genuine need?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have not seen the advice from the Allianz economic adviser but I can inform the member that the Government has consistently lifted the minimum wage each year. In fact New Zealand’s minimum wage is I think second-highest in the OECD as a proportion of the average wage. So the Government will continue to weigh up the balance of lifting incomes for those on the minimum wage by increasing the minimum wage but not at the expense of putting them out of work.