Access weaknesses in leaked report

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 1

Access weaknesses in leaked report

By

BRENDON BURNS,

political reporter

Inherent weaknesses in the accountability of the $255 million Access programme are detailed in a leaked Labour Department report. Releasing the report yesterday, the Opposition spokesman on employment, Mr Winston Peters, said it showed the Government’s training programmes to be in absolute chaos.

The Minister of Employment, Mr Goff, last evening announced a review of the scheme’s accountability. Written by the Secretary of Labour, Mr Jas McKenzie, and addressed to Mr Goff, the leaked report details a host of shortcomings in the Access scheme. Most of these centre on the Regional Employment and Access Councils, set up earlier this year to co-ordinate training programmes on a local basis.

The report said the monitoring of these councils (R.E.A.C.S), which in Canterbury received $18.21 million, had inherent weaknesses.

“First, the system provides information about what .is being done as opposed to identifying gaps or shortcomings in the R.E.A.C.s’ performance,” it said. “Second, the R.E.A.C., in effect, reports on itself.”

While the report outlines the steps Mr Goff could take if he was not happy with a council, including ultimate disbandment of the committee, it said there were “considerable public relations costs.” There have been instances where R.E.A.C.S have deviated from stated Government policy, the report says. A number of R.E.A.C.S are said to have rejected the policy of funding the purchase of capital equipment by people pr groups providing Access training. (R.E.A.C.S are known to be attempting to stretch their funding to create as many training positions as possible.) But the report said this could seriously limit the range of training available in a region. “R.E.A.C.S risk discouraging private sector participation and may be in danger of skewing the focus of training in the region away from ‘hands on’ type courses.”

Wider-reaching policy implications are said to be involved in the case of the Auckland R.E.A.C. which, on advice from the Carpenters’ Union, has agreed not to include any courses covered by apprenticeships. The report says this undermines a new Government policy of encouraging the acquisition of trade skills through other than traditional sources.

It says that individual R.E.A.C. members’ interests are not always the same as the Government’s and that R.E.A.C.S are subject to well-organised pressure groups. Mr McKenzie’s report concludes by saying that the R.E.A.C. structure is unprecedented and there are no models for appropriate behaviour. No training had been provided for R.E.A.C. members, he said. Mr Peters said Mr McKenzie’s report “blew the whistle” on the Access scheme, outlining severe Labour Department misgivings about its structure.

"Setting up the R.E.A.C.S without the support, the organisational skills, the training or proper accountability is a scandal of the worst magnitude,” Mr Peters said. Some R.E.A.C.S were deliberately sabotaging the Government’s training policies, he said, but the responsibility for this was the Government’s, particularly Mr Goffs. Mr Goff last evening announced a combined Labour Department and Audit Office review of the accountability arrangements for R.E.A.C.S. He said he was confident they could perform their very big responsibilities but it was important to ensure that accountability was robust and effective.