Jobs schemes ‘destroyed '
BRENDON BURNS
political reporter
The Government was accused yesterday of allowing the destruction of the country’s best job training schemes, as the Opposition pressed home its claim that Access is in chaos.
During a debate in Parliament, the Opposition’s spokesman , on labour, Mr Bill Birch, said Regional Employment and Access Councils in Auckland and Wellington had axed a total of 1700 training places this year. These cuts had des-
troyed the best and long-est-serving job training schemes, run by such agencies as the Y.M.CA. and the Salvation Army, he told Parliament . "The Press” reported yesterday that a leaked Labour Department document had stated that there ’ were inherent weaknesses in the accountability and monitoring of R.E.A.Ca
These councils were now allocating millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to people of their own choice and not following Government policy, Mr Birch said.
The Government member of Parliament for Wellington Central, Ms FMn Wilde, said it was not true to say the best , schemes had.been axed. Some no longer in place had not been catering for trainees' needs or achieving the best results. - Mrs Jenny Shipley (Nat, Ashburton) said the Government had been deceiving or misleading people about Access. The Aorangi R.EA.C. had 504 training positions in May, but by August this had dropped to 410. “This is not good enough,” she said, With
unemployment riatafc.; Mr Rob Munro, (Nat, Invercargill) said he had going oft the unemptoyment benefit onto Access positions in Southland had not been getting paid. While a computer breakdown was to blame, people attempting to improve themselves should not be left without income, he said. The author of the leaked report on R.EA.C. accountability,. said yesterday that there was no suggestion hundreds of millions of dollars was
ity arrangements now in place may need some fine tuning. ' An . audit was ' already under way. he said. ' “I think in the main the RE-A.Cs are doing a fine ( job of getting to grips with £ the Access concept" ; Mr McKehrie said it was a new scheme with some •/ quite radical features, Including administration by communitybased bodies. —
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19871008.2.62
Bibliographic details
Press, 8 October 1987, Page 10
Word Count
347Jobs schemes ‘destroyed ' Press, 8 October 1987, Page 10
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Copyright in all Footrot Flats cartoons is owned by Diogenes Designs Ltd. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise these cartoons and make them available online as part of this digitised version of the Press. You can search, browse, and print Footrot Flats cartoons for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Diogenes Designs Ltd for any other use.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.