Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to share my comments on the report of the Auditor General on the NWT income security programs, a report released last week.
Income support is supposed to help people who have no other way to pay for basics such as food, shelter and clothing. The core shelter benefit is for rent or mortgage, utilities, damage deposit, home insurance and so on. The core essential benefit is for food, clothing, personal needs, transportation, telephone and household supplies. This audit looked at four income security programs, the Income Assistance Program, the Student Financial Assistance program, the senior home heating subsidy and the Child Care User Subsidy. For anyone remotely associated with income security, it was no surprise that the report was scathing.
A quick perusal of the report’s table of contents shows the following problems with these programs, problems which have long been recognized and suffered through by income security clients and the organizations who help them. They are:
inconsistent processing of client applications;
payments not made on time and incorrect payments, either too much or too little;
forms and back-up paperwork lost or misplaced;
inadequately trained staff and insufficient opportunities for staff training;
not enough staff to handle the workload;
staff overburdened with work, handling too many files;
inconsistencies with how different officials apply the rules to applications;
management not adequately monitoring staff performance;
a lack of clear processes to support program delivery and manage the work; and
limited assessment of program performance.
All of these deficiencies indicate a division at Education, Culture and Employment that is not operating as it should. It results in clients who suffer the consequences, a reduced quality of life and a lack of self-respect, both of which the Income Security Program is supposed to avoid.
I would like to quote a constituent I recently met with to discuss consistently late support payments. This is her assessment of the current situation: Over the years, there have been numerous problems with income support. It has been bounced from Health and Social Services, where social workers worked with families and knew all the issues, to Education, Culture and Employment where families are falling through the cracks because there is no one department looking at the whole picture.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
My constituent went on to say: Since ECE has taken over, that department has become the enforcer and the two departments, Health and Social Services and Education, Culture and Employment, do not talk to each other. They are in conflicting roles.
The Auditor General’s report didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know but it does quantify the deficiencies for MLAs, the department and the public. Now as the department formulates its action plan in response to the Auditor General’s report, I hope that the department has the blinders off, and I hope they remain objective and honest about their performance and about the Auditor General’s findings.
There’s an opportunity here for ECE to make some major adjustments to its Income Security Program delivery, to revise it for the better, and revise it to benefit the clients it’s intended to serve. I’m happy to see that the department accepts the Auditor General’s recommendations. The proof of their commitment will be in the actions they take to fix the problems. I’ll be watching for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
