Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Clark's pledge - Good money after bad

The headline reads "Govt to give $446m to help troubled families"

The government is going to add close to another half billion to the welfare bill that creates these troubled families in the first place. Troubled families receiving NGO services are almost always beneficiary families. Many families typically have three or four service providers working with them. Many will have children who were born onto a benefit. They will have debt problems, sometimes gambling, drug and alcohol abuse problems. They may be methadone patients raising children. They use foodbanks habitually. They are at risk of losing their children if they do not comply with plans devised by CYFS. Depression is common.

As much as I support volunteers working with these families more government funding will probably just be good money after bad. Volunteering (apart from transport costs) has no financial cost. Costs come with paid staff, offices, administration and bureaucracy. As I have said before - at that stage NGOs become almost interchangeable with government departments.

1 comment:

Cactus Kate said...

The could add a zero to that and it still wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

In an attempt to make everyone feel better - throw money at it.

I don't the "feel good" thing works in an economy where people are drowning in a sea of expensive debt, no tax cuts for years and inflation at recent record levels.

Most people are already feeling poor and disenfranchised, some on the top tax rate!