Buck calls for action

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 5

Buck calls for action

By

KAY FORRESTER

A Christchurch City councillor, Vicki Buck, will call for the council’s employment initiatives working party to be reactivated to devise a work scheme for the young, short-term unemployed.

Cr Buck and the council’s employment services officer, Ms Jan Andrews, met the Minister ,of Employment, Mr Goff, in Wellington on Wednesday to discuss a council-initi-ated scheme for work experience.

The council scheme had received only a lukewarm reception from the Minister who suggested it could fit under the work experience criteria for Access.

Cr Buck said the meeting was productive. She understood the difficulty the Minister faced in setting a precedent if he funded the Christchurch scheme. She was pursuing the possibility of the scheme or part of it being run under the umbrella of Access.

Cr Buck said the recently announced Restart scheme for those 20 and older and who had been unemployed for nine months was not discussed with the Minister. The scheme has drawn criticism from Christchurch local body politicians over what it might cost councils to run. “The Minister has made his announcement on Restart. We have that

scheme. We were concerned to try to get something for Christchurch for those younger than 20 and who had not been out of work for nine months,” Cr Buck said.

Cr Buck said she would request at next Monday’s policy and finance committee meeting that the employment initiative working party, which had lapsed, meet again to prepare a scheme for discussion at the December 19 council meeting.

She wanted to discuss the scheme with the unions involved and the Labour Department, she said.