This report has been commissioned by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to explore high level options for decentralising welfare in general and specifically to Ngai Tūhoe that incentivises positive outcomes while protecting the Government’s exposure to risk. Possible options need to be consistent with both the Investment Approach, as developed by Work and Income, and the historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Ngai Tūhoe.
We have reviewed Tūhoe’s readily available economic and social indicators and note that MSD are in the process of deriving the actuarial liability for Tūhoe. The indicators we viewed appear to present significant opportunity for improvement: Tūhoe is a relatively young population with high levels of unemployment, welfare dependency and low incomes. Clearly further analysis of available data, the actuarial valuation and data from other social service agencies (e.g. education, justice and health), will be able to highlight where services could be better targeted. Even from readily available data there are some obvious areas (e.g. youth unemployment, relatively high smoking rates) that would benefit from targeted intervention that Tūhoe could be best placed to provide.
In 2011 the Crown entered into a relationship agreement with Tūhoe in which it acknowledged the mana motuhake of Tūhoe and its aspirations to self-govern. Tūhoe have stated their aspirations to become independent of the Government, generate its own revenue and become self-sustaining. MSD has asked whether or not it is feasible to transfer a portion of the Crown’s liability to Tūhoe.
We have reviewed some of the literature on decentralisation of welfare and in particular with respect to indigenous communities. There is a spectrum of differing degrees of decentralisation from deconcentration of administrative functions at the very limited end through to full fiscal and political devolution. There can also be movement up and down this spectrum depending on a range of variables such as the capability of communities to increasingly absorb functions and the transfer of risk.
Further, we have summarised some pre-requisites for successful decentralisation initiatives gleamed from international literature on indigenous self-determinism. In essence, any initiative will need to be at the least co-designed and co-governed by Tūhoe with significant investment in capability development, a willingness to share data and a tolerance for incremental development.
We describe the potential to design an initiative whereby the Government and Tūhoe enter into a co-governance arrangement for a suite of integrated discretionary services (either across Vote Social Development or a cross-Vote appropriation), where the savings are shared and the Government retains the risk of failure. We have then set out what an option at the extreme end of welfare decentralisation could look like for Tūhoe, and what steps would be required in order to achieve this.
We conclude by recommending some immediate practical steps within the bounds of what can be done now, while discussions between Tūhoe and the Crown regarding the ultimate ‘destination’ and pathway to more substantive decentralisation are on-going.