Opinion: Work and Income staff do great work

Mike Bryant says Work and Income staff carry out a difficult and complicated job. Photo/File

Mike Bryant, Ministry of Social Development Regional Commissioner, responds to Merepeka Raukawa-Tait's column, Beneficiaries an easy target, July 28:

We work hard to support people with the financial support they are entitled to and provide any help they may need, but the reality is some of the people who see us would rather not have to. Their situation or circumstances has led to them needing help, and for some people it can be tough asking for it.

A key fundamental of our service is treating people with respect.

It must be so easy for people to write whatever they like to justify their point.

We're public servants doing the best we can to provide all the help we can to the individuals and families we work with, and once again I find Ms Raukawa-Tait's comments uninformed and disappointing. Some of her comments simply aren't true and are based on assumption.

We're here to support those that need it with many forms of assistance - helping clients find work, skills and training programmes, health and disability support, family violence response, financial support and social housing assistance - to name some.

From July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017, just over $109,000,000 in main benefit payments were made in Rotorua. As well as $984,000 for Emergency Housing, $1,593,000 for Childcare Subsidy and $4,000,000 for non-beneficiary assistance.

We do our best to ensure all our clients are receiving full and correct benefit entitlement.

I'll be the first to admit that we don't always get it right and when that happens we do our best to fix it.

We can't, and don't, take a one-size-fits-all approach. Our service is based on each person's individual circumstances.

A stand-down is a period of time where the client cannot receive benefit payments. A client's initial stand-down period is based on their family circumstances and average income over the 26 or 52 weeks prior to an application being made. In most cases, benefit payments commence immediately after the stand-down.

If a client is in hardship during the application process they may qualify for a Special Needs Grant to assist them with living costs in the interim.

I found Ms Raukawa-Tait's comments implying that our staff wind people up and then show them the door when they display threatening behaviour, objectionable.

Our staff do a difficult and complicated job. The people we help often have complex issues they're trying to address which can sometimes lead to stressful situations. However, safety of our staff and clients is our absolute priority - no one in a Work and Income office should ever feel threatened or scared.

Clients who intimidate staff or other people on site by aggressive or threatening actions can either be warned, and if necessary, trespassed.

It's a shame Ms Raukawa-Tait hasn't taken the opportunity to learn about our business as she would have been able to see some of the programmes we offer, such as Fast Track, a hospitality training programme which is run in partnership with Accor.

Fast Track aims to provide 30 young people from Rotorua the opportunity to gain training and employment in the hospitality industry. This is just one example of the many programmes we run to help people into work.

From July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017, we helped nearly 9500 clients into employment in our region - 2000 were from Rotorua.

I know that many of the people we've helped to reconnect to employment had a positive experience with us and were grateful for the assistance they received.

I again personally extend an invitation to Ms Raukawa-Tait to visit Rotorua Community Link to see first-hand the great work our staff do.

Our door is open. We're here to help. That's what we do and that's why dedicated people choose to work for us.