Benefits alert

Press, 6 October 1988, Page 1

Benefits alert

Wellington reporter Tighter controls have been imposed by the Social Welfare Department on special benefit and emergency assistance. The Minister of Social Welfare, Dr Cullen, said he had instructed the department to tighten up the criteria for eligibility. New guidelines dealing with special needs grants and special benefits would be issued soon to all the department’s district offices. These new criteria would provide more effective controls on over-all spending on these programmes, and improve public confidence that only genuine cases of hardship or special need were getting extra assistance, he said. Special needs grants could be paid to beneficiaries as a one-off emergency payment to cover essential household expenses that could not be budgeted for — such as a medical bill. In future, all beneficiaries would be told that no further grants would be approved once they had received a specialneeds grant to clear their arrears, Dr Cullen said. Beneficiaries who seemed to have difficulty budgeting for ordinary household spending would be recommended to see a Budget Advisory Service.