A few dollars more doesn't help

A one-time cash injection of a few thousand dollars will do little to alleviate the pressures of overworked Northland budgeting services according to the people who are actually doing the work.

The government announced last week that it would provide a one-time payment of $25,450 across six Northland budgeting services, from the Northern Wairoa to the Far North, each receiving between $3000 and $6450.

But while the budgeting services said they were grateful for the money, it would not alleviate the pressure generated by tightening economic conditions and governmental policy changes.

Last November's welfare reforms required WINZ to refer people applying for supplementary benefits to a budgeting service for compulsory financial planning help. Most Northland budgeting services have seen their workloads double as a result, some saying their workloads were between two and four times heavier than they were this time last year.

The Mid North Budgeting Service Trust is expecting to handle 500 cases this year, twice as many as in 2011, co-ordinator Kane Lyndon saying that most of that increase had come from policy changes.

"I'd say about 95 per cent of clients have come from Work and Income," Mrs Lyndon said.

"We traditionally get a lot from Work and Income, but that change has brought a lot more."

The trust had been allocated an extra $4000, and while she described that as a nice surprise, on-going resources would be nicer.

Mrs Lyndon, the only full-time employee at the Mid North Budgeting Services Trust, a part-time employee and volunteers taking up the remainder of the loads, wasn't expecting the money to go far, but was considering putting it towards an outreach facility.

"It will help a bit towards the extra transport costs of getting to and from Kaikohe," she said.

Catherine Ross, manager of Kaitaia Community House Budgeting Services, said operational costs would swallow up the extra $3000 it had received fairly quickly.

"We have a contract to handle 53 cases but we are handling close to 150 at the moment," she said.

"Sometimes entire families turn up at our facilities, so space can be very tight as well."

Space is also very tight at the Far North Budgeting Management Service, where co-ordinator Lynda Greig said she was trying to juggle three rooms between four case managers.

"It's often a case of playing musical rooms," she said.

"I think we may put the money towards renting another room."

She did not expect to be receiving an extra $4000 regularly, and the service would definitely be practising what it preached.

"We're a budgeting service so we need to be able to work under our own budget," she said, "but it would be nice to get that money on an on-going basis."