High Administrative Costs

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 179, 1 August 1938, Page 6

High Administrative Costs

In view of the fact that the much smaller problem of unemployment costs more to administer in New Zealand to-day than a few years ago, it is interesting to observe that the same disproportion has been noted in Britain. “Nobody wants to curtail any benefit which comes to any individual who is a beneficiary under the great system of social services which we have built up in this country,” said Mr. Graham White in the House of Commons, “but I would draw attention to the tremendous growth of the purely administrative expenditure of the Unemployment Assistance Board. In the year 1932-33 there was a weekly average of 988,000 payments to applicants for allowances, and the administrative cost was £3,385,000, or something like £3 4s per head. “The work at that time was being done by the Ministry of Labour in conjunction with the local authorities. Iu 1933-34 the number had fallen to 957,000 cases per week on the average, but the expenditure had risen to £3,740,000. The Unemployment Assistance Board took over the work in 1936 and for the year 1936-37 the average number of payments weekly was 600,000, something like one-third less, while the expenditure of the board in making those payments had risen to £4,430,000, or something over £7 per head.”