Money not always the answer

No Right Turn has commented on United Future’s plans to reform CYFS (which look not bad).

NRT goes on to say that you can not ignore that it also needs serious resourcing.

Of course he does not back this up. Just the usual knee jerk response on any issue – more money and higher taxes.

So I checked with the worthy folks at the Treasury. How much funding does CYFS get, and has it been cut, stayed the same, or increased?

Well in 2003/2004 it is budgeted (taking into account DEFU update) to spend $364 million. An additional $92 million is also spent through non govermental agencies.

And how much funding did CYFS get say four years ago? Well again some quick fact checking and it was $249 million. Amd Mr Excel tells me that is a huge 46% funding increase in just four years.

So we have all these problems despite increasing funding by 46%! Time for some accountability.