The Ministry of Disabled People is to be restructured and will lose responsibility for delivering support services.
The government has announced the move after a critical review, which says the ministry is not set up to effectively manage the scale and nature of its funding and has inadequate budget controls.
The ministry will become a standalone - no longer sharing back-office functions with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) - tasked with strategic policy advice, advocacy and monitoring.
The transfer will be managed by a taskforce, and the move to a standalone agency will be done through an Order in Council in October.
All support services will be moved to MSD, with the rollout of the Enabling Good Lives approach put on hold.
Funding levels for residential facility based care will also be kept at current levels, with no increases to keep up with inflation.
The government will also bring back indicative budgets and monitoring of Needs Assessment and Service Coordination organisations.
Government delivers its biggest blow to disability communities, Labour says
Labour has described the changes made to the Ministry of Disabled People as the harshest blow yet to the disabled community.
“It’s beyond disgraceful how this Government is treating our disability communities,” acting disability spokesperson Carmel Sepuloni said.
“The Government plans to leave the Ministry with minimal staff and will remove financial control. Support services worth $2 billion are also being taken from Whaikaha.
“It’s also cruel that the Government has halted the Enabling Good Lives programme. A programme disabled people have been greatly worried and vocal about being tampered with.
“This programme gives choice and control to disabled people to lead better, meaningful, and dignified lives. To halt the rollout in its tracks, is nothing short of shameful.
“Ironically, it was a National-led Government that started the programme. Labour honoured this commitment and made record investment into it.
“Given the Government is unable to reveal the savings of their devastating move to restrict disability funding in March, any claims of savings here cannot be believed. The only thing we can be sure of is disability communities will be missing out.
“Disabled people, their carers, whānau, and disability organisations across the country deserve so much more.
“They are tired of losing out on support and cannot reconcile the callous treatment they are receiving under this Government. It all serves to take disabled people back decades,” Sepuloni said.
- Stuff