Govt may scrap P.E.P.—claim

Press, 5 October 1984, Page 2

Govt may scrap P.E.P.—claim

The Government may be planning to scrap the Project Employment Programme, according to the director of the Canterbury Aged People’s Welfare Council, Mr Charles Waters.

Mr Waters said in Christchurch yesterday that he had been alerted to the possible move when he read a news report last week that the Labour Department had stopped processing applications for P.E.P. workers on public sector schemes. This was because of a lack of staff and a backlog of applications for private sector schemes. Then he had read a report in “The Press” yesterday in which the Minister of Employment, Mr Burke, said that the schemes were being reviewed. Mr Waters said the first Labour Department statement about delays in the processing of applications might have been intended to “soften the public up.” While they were waiting for their scheme applications to

be processed, a decision might be made not to have any more P.E.P. schemes. People employed on P.E.P. were doing valuable work in the community and the schemes were providing jobs, he said. Mr Burke’s comment that the schemes were being reviewed was made in a speech in Wellington on Wednesday on the Government’s proposed package on unemployment. Ke said that some groups of unemployed people were seriously disadvantaged, so that there would always be a need to provide some form of support and employment protection. Labour Department briefing papers showed that fully subsidised public-sector schemes and partially subsidised private-sector schemes had little effect on the stock of jobs available. These schemes were being reviewed. It would be better to use some of that money on training and skill develop-

ment for the unemployed, he said. No firm decision would be made until after the employment conference next March.

A spokesman for Mr Burke’s office yesterday afternoon confirmed that the, schemes were being reviewed, but he said that this was part of a main review of all private and public sector employment programmes. A background document based on the review would be released about the time of the Budget in November and submissions could be made on its content and any recommendations by Janu-

ary. The submissions would be reviewed and an outline of possible reforms to employment assistance measures would be circulated before the employment conference next March. Once the views of the participants in the employment conference were known, the Government would finalise its employment strategy, he said.