Big changes foreshadowed for social service funding
Former police commissioner Andrew Coster started as chief executive of the Social Investment Agency this week.
Photo:
RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The head of the Social Investment Agency - on the big changes ahead for funding of social services provided by NGOs for some of the most vulnerable.
Yesterday the Minister for Social Investment Nicola Willis announced a new $190 million Social Investment Fund designed to transform the way the social services are delivered to vulnerable New Zealanders. She says it is starting small, but over time, more of the government's 7 billion dollars of contacts with NGOs would come under the auspices of the agency.
The announcement came on the same day as a scathing report by the Auditor General found that Oranga Tamariki didn't look at the impacton children and families when it made abrupt cuts to social service contracts last year.
Andrew Coster, former Police Commissioner, is the Chief Executive of the Social Investment Agency and will oversee the new fund.
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