More accident offices

Press, 21 August 1976, Page 10

More accident offices

Parliamentary Reporter Wellington

The Accident Compensation Commission is decentralising its administration, according to its annual report for the last financial year, tabled in Parliament. The report says that regional offices are now open in Auckland, Hamilton, . Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, and district offices at Whangarei, Rotorua, Napier, New Plymouth, and Invercargill. “Through the staff in these offices, the commission has established a wider and improved liaison with the communi ty 5 Strengthening of staff in regional

offices is continuing, and a policy of further decentralisation is to be followed for the next few years,” the report says. “The staff, which numbered 176 at the beginning of tlie year, had increased to 319 by March 31. Of this number, 72 were at regional or district offices.”

It says the commission is still in the course of developing the full roles imposed on it by the Accident Compensation Act, and this requires a continuing scrutiny of organisational cture and staff requirements. The nucleus of a national team of liaison officers, whose task is to coordinate the rehabilitation

of accident victims, has been established by the commission.

The report says 18 liaison officers, who were actively assisting 1369 claimants in various parts of the country at March 31, cared for many thousands throughout the financial year.

The commission spent $69,556 on the rehabilitation of claimants: $40,428 for alterations to houses, $19,511 for a wide variety of physical aids, and $9617 tor such purposes as education, retraining, and modifications to motor vehicles. The report says that rehabilitation services in New Zealand appear likely to enter new avenues of development.