What about welfare spending?

I asked someone, given all of the good news about dropping beneficiary numbers, what would you expect to be happening with spending?
They gave this some thought, allowed for yearly cost of living rises and said that they would expect some downward shift and, at the very least, expenditure to have stayed the same. The Treasury financial statements were released yesterday so let's have a look;




Using actual year to June figures (1st column) produces an overall rise of 8.9 percent in two years.
%
Super +8.9
ACC +21.4
DPB -4.8
Unemployment -34.3
Family Support +54.3
Student Allowances -6.8
Other Social Asst grants +11.7

Take ACC and Super from the equation and there is still a rise of 5.6%

When asked on Breakfast TV why spending hadn't dropped Benson Pope said because there was more case management going into those people who were on other benefits beyond unemployment. It's a small investment in the future.

Certainly staff numbers have not gone down. BUT personnel costs are not included in the above figures.