In terms of these regional offices and the management and administrative support, do they have a database of individuals or beneficiaries who have training or a certain type of training, so that when our industry is looking for a particular job they can go to the database and say we have X, Y and Z employees that have this type of training, let’s contact them and get them over to put in an application to get the training? Do these regional offices have a database for our skilled workforce?
I do believe they do. There are steering committees in place to deal with industry’s needs and also community needs based on their assessment. Through various agencies we’ve been working with as a department they have produced data on individuals that were trained, what year they were trained, and how many are available to work and so forth. We do have that information available through our department and our regional representatives.
Just in terms of the management program support, I was looking on the website and I couldn’t find any links to the specific program under the advanced education. Is there somewhere we can get more information? Where are the regional offices located in the Northwest Territories?
With representatives at the regional level I believe we cover all five regions. Other communities, as well, beyond the five regions. We can provide some detailed information on the data itself and where individuals can collect that information via if it’s not on the website where it is at. We will find that out from the regional perspective and from our department.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Page 10-23, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, operations expenditure summary, $48.727 million.
Agreed.
Page 10-24, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, grants and contributions, contributions, $35.349 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I need to ask here under this small community employment contribution, it’s gone down significantly from $339,000 to $160,000. Can I ask why?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Ms. Eggenhofer.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount has been reduced because $400,000 will be re-profiled from the Small Communities Employment Support Program to the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat to hire three regional language coordinators in Fort McPherson, Deline and Fort Providence.
Thanks for the information. So this Small Community Employment Fund, my understanding is that was established by one of the special committees during the 16th Assembly and I think this committee was revived in the 17th. Was this re-profiling of this $400,000 something that the Rural and Remote committee was aware of? Were they consulted before the decision was made to re-profile the money?
I’m not entirely certain how much information was provided to the committee in advance of the decision being taken, but I do recall it was in the business plan last fall and it was identified there as moving the $400,000. I think at the time the rationale for targeting the $400,000 was that the program wasn’t fully subscribed at the time and there was an opportunity to also access the Labour Market Development Agreement and Labour Market Agreement for funding to hire people in the summer. I think that was the reason for looking at that program to render the $400,000.
That’s good.
Page 10-24, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, grants and contributions, contributions, $35.349 million.
Agreed.
Page 10-25, Education, Culture and Employment, information item, advanced education, active positions.
Agreed.
Page 10-27, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary, $41.591 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I wanted to say this is a very important program. There are many people throughout the North who need government support because of their personal situations. This division plays a big role. However, based on feedback from constituents and listening to other colleagues, there are still some major issues here. Dignity is still missing in the treatment of income assistance clients on a too frequent basis. I’m not saying all the time, but more than it should be. People, frankly speaking, are treated like they are dirt. This is totally unacceptable. I know it’s unacceptable to the Minister. Our workers are consistently losing client paperwork on a monthly basis to where clients not only have to come in and re-establish it, but they have to learn to photocopy everything, which is not always an easy thing unless you happen to have a photocopier in your house or some piece of equipment that will serve, and that’s not typically true of many of our income support security clients. Often they have to go back to original sources such as the fuel distributor, the utility, their landlord to get original receipts because of this lost paperwork. Unnecessarily requesting a person is present when there are mobility issues, which engenders expensive taxi rides.
These are some of the issues that I consistently come up with or hear from clients about. I know the Minister has heard these sorts of things and knows what I’m talking about here.
Does this budget include or is the Minister planning a way to really try and make progress on this? I think many of our workers get into the business out of social concerns themselves, and yet somehow, after a period of time, their behaviour changes. Does the Minister see any way to deal with this situation?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I feel the frustration of the Member and I do get those requests as well. As you know, we are going through some changes and recommendations being brought forward from the office of the Auditor General. That gives us an opportunity to improve our programs. As you know, these are regulations that we follow. It’s part of the Auditor’s report that we have to be stringent and follow our policies in place. There are some areas that we can be somewhat flexible and I’ve instructed my department, when it comes to professionalism, we need to treat everybody with respect.
We’ve conducted, I believe, a couple of workshops and training for CSOs, client service officers. We know it’s a high-demand position. We know it’s a very stressful position to be in. We provide support as best as we can as a department. There are times where one individual is working on a caseload of 30 or 40 at times. It’s a high demand, high stress area. Sometimes they lose their cool but at the same time we remind them they have to be courteous, they have to be professional in the work environment. Due to that, there has been some improvement to ensure those are consistently followed through.
Members have shared their concerns with me and I did follow through with my department to provide training. We’ll continue to do that. This is an area that I am fully familiar with, and again, working within the office of the Auditor General, they reviewed our income support file, as well, and that will be before us soon.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate his comments there. I appreciate the focus he’s bringing to this, and I urge him not to stop or slow down. There are issues remaining out there, and I want to acknowledge that not all income assistance officers are like this. I do acknowledge that there are undoubtedly some people taking advantage of the system and that must be very frustrating, but we shouldn’t be making the people that really need our help – for whatever reason, it’s real – they shouldn’t be paying the price here. Thanks to the Minister for that, and I’ll look forward to more on that.
Just one last one. I see utilities have stayed the same as last year. I know the Minister is aware that electricity rates have gone up 7 percent this year and will over the next two years, with another 5 percent the year after that. Obviously, there’s a question here. I think we’ve heard about gasoline rates in Yellowknife and so on and elsewhere in the North. Is there a policy to try and adjust utilities here? Are we talking utilities for income support?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Devitt.
Mr. Chair, when we did the budget, we looked at actual expenditures and found that there was sufficient flexibility in the budget to cover the higher costs of fuel that the Member mentioned.
That’s great news. What would have happened last year with the extra dollars budgeted for utilities? How would they be reallocated? What’s the process there?
Mr. Chair, when we look at our variance reports, usually we’ll see some expenditure areas that are higher than budget, some that are lower, and we’ll manage across the department. So we don’t necessarily reallocate funds.
That sounds logical. What would it be called? A transfer of funds. Is that different than reallocation?
Mr. Chair, if there was a change in the budget, it would be done through a transfer. That’s correct.
That’s it, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Moving on with questions I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to, at the outset, say that I echo Mr. Bromley’s comments. I think the Minister has heard me say a number of times that I’ve encountered constituents who have had great difficulties with income support. It is an area that is difficult, and I appreciate that it’s a difficult area for the department to staff and to keep trained up.
But it’s such an important area, and I give credit to Mr. Bromley’s request for dignity for everybody who has to go there. I think lots of times that’s not what comes first when people are going to income support. It’s not what they feel when they first go there, so I would urge the Minister to do everything he can to try and change some of that culture within this part of his department.
Knowing that there are so many difficulties with income support, I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not there is any contemplation of a review of the income support programs.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The office of the Auditor General conducted a performance audit of income security just recently, spanning from April 2009 to September 2012. There has been a review, I guess, from outside, highlighting various aspects within the income security framework. The last changes we made were in 2007 after a review of our income security, so we’re just waiting for the outcome of the office of the Auditor General, what the outcome would be, and then we have to follow through with that. We’re just waiting for that, and proceeding once we get that information.
That’s good to hear. The Auditor General, in my experience, always does a grand job of providing excellent recommendations.
As the department underwent this review with the Auditor General’s office, I know that people usually discover things as they have somebody who’s poring over their books and their programs and so on. So does the Minister have anything at this point where he can say that, yes, there were some areas where they already know that there are deficiencies and that they will be looking at trying to correct?
I can’t really speak specifics to the recommendations that will be coming down. I believe it will be tabled this week. So we’re just waiting, and I guess we’ll stay tuned until it’s tabled. Then from there the detailed information will come out. In due time, we’ll have to follow through with their recommendations. It is before the office of the Auditor General, so I really can’t speak to it at this point.
I wasn’t asking for the Auditor General’s recommendations. Normally, when somebody is looking at things and you are looking at what they are looking at, oftentimes things jump out at you. I just wondered whether or not the department had, at this point, recognized that they have some deficiencies on their own without the Auditor General having to tell them that.
I wanted to ask a question with regard to the amount of money at the bottom of page 10-27 that talks to program delivery details. The amount of money for income assistance programs actually is going down this year, ’13-14, as compared to the current fiscal year. We’re in a situation where we’re in a fairly large economic downturn. The trend that I’m aware of is that the requirement for income assistance and the number of people using income assistance has been going up as opposed to staying steady or going down.
Does this amount of money staying steady, actually going down just a bit, does that indicate that there’s been a change in that trend? Or is it simply are we kind of on a wish and a prayer that things aren’t going to change and that we’ll need more money?
Mr. Chair, I am trying to get more detailed information from my staff here. There has been some fluctuation in, of course, income support throughout the Northwest Territories, and we’re trying to reflect on that where if there’s an increase in funding. We realize that some of the regions are lacking, let’s say, job opportunities, so there’s been an increase in caseload in those areas. But at the same time, there are other regions that their caseload has decreased, so it balances each other. Obviously, we like to see caseloads go down.
In due time, where the economic booming is happening in the Deh Cho, Sahtu, or Beaufort-Delta, I’m hoping to see the income security funding go down a bit. That should be the overall target for this government. Slowly it’s happening. Maybe if my director has some detailed information pertaining to that, if we can allow him.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Mr. Devitt.
Mr. Chair, we monitor the income assistance monthly expenditures carefully, as we do with all of our demand-based programs. As the Member will see, the budget remains above actuals from 2011-12, so we did our budget. We felt, at that time, that there was sufficient money in the budget to cover it, but we continue each year to monitor the expenditures in this area very closely. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Devitt. Ms. Bisaro
Thanks, Mr. Chair. It’s one thing to monitor the expenditures but I would hope that we’re also looking at providing cost of living increases in some of the amounts of dollars that we give out to our income support clients. Certainly, their expenses go up and everybody’s are always going up. Does this figure in the budget include an adjustment for cost of living increases? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. It does capture some of those comments that the Member is referring to, whether it be fuel costs going up and food costs going up. So we’ve been monitoring that. If there is an increase in those areas, then obviously there is an increase in our budget as well. We will continue to monitor it. If there needs to be changes to the budget, then we will be before standing committee to reflect those high costs of living.
In 2007, again, we have increased our funding based on communities’ needs and high cost of living and so forth. We continue to do that. Based on the outcome of this Auditor General’s report, we may have to make some changes again. We are just waiting for that report to come out. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I wanted to ask a question, as well, in this section under the Student Financial Assistance funding. I note that it goes up almost $2 million between the revised estimates and the main estimates for this year. I think the House approved an increase in funding for Student Financial Assistance because we’re getting more students asking for assistance, which is a good thing. It means more kids are going off to post-secondary. Does this increase in funding allow for students taking upgrades to get student financial assistance from the department? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, this was also addressed in this House. SFA is a basic supplementary grant to students that are entering post-secondary. It is directly for post-secondary. It’s not for upgrading, but there are access programs that individuals can access towards their… Whether it be a diploma or degree program, they would be eligible for funding partially. Those are just some of the areas. We do have other subsidies available as well.
Again, going back to our federal funding, Labour Market, areas where we funded students in the past, there is also funding available through Aboriginal governments, the scholarships and so forth. To answer Ms. Bisaro, the upgrading is not covered through Student Financial Assistance because it is strictly for post-secondary. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro, your time is up. If you have any questions, let me know. I can put you back on the list. Moving on with questions on 10-27 I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just a really quick question in regard to Productive Choices. When was this program initiated? When was it implemented? How successful has the Productive Choices Program been since the department initiated and implemented it? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The Productive Choices I believe has been in the running since just over 10 years. There have been some ups and downs with that, but it was built so that there can be positive choices in the communities working with the organizations so that individuals can be prepared to enter the workforce. Again, some experience, the life skills and employment experiences. In my view, it has been very successful. At the same time, we always look for improvements, enhancement to the programming. There are ways where individual Members have approached me to say why couldn’t we locate in those areas where maybe they can get some wood or fish for the elders and so forth. It’s organizations that we have to work with. We have a list of organizations. We always add to them as well. The Member did approach us earlier, as well, where there is limited capacity in the community when it comes to organizations. How can we effectively make it work in the communities? Those are areas that we are continuously monitoring and making changes. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Can the Minister just maybe confirm or give us input on whether or not Income Support has the Income Support dollars and if applications have gone up over the last 10 years?
