July 15, 2009 8:05am by David Farrar

Funding cut to Auckland’s Combined Beneficiaries Union

Auckland’s Combined Beneficiaries Union has lost its Government funding, leaving unemployed Aucklanders south of the Harbour Bridge without a state-supported advocate despite the deepening recession.

I find it amusing when I see titles such as a Beneficiaries Union. I wonder what they are going to do if they don’t get Government agreement on an issue – go on strike? 🙂

The union’s grant of $66,000 a year was cancelled in April because of what Social Development Ministry client advocacy and review manager Zoe Griffiths said were “serious concerns with its financial management”.

She said an independent audit by Deloittes found the union showed “poor judgment in using public funds in reimbursing private expenditure”.

Sounds fair enough. Personally I am not a fan of funding such groups anyway. Don’t get me wrong I support funding community law centres who don’t get political, and just support people who need an advocate etc. But taxpayers fund a huge number of groups who then use that money to publicly lobby for even more money.

The decision means that the only two beneficiary advocates in Auckland still funded by the ministry’s $260,000-a-year Citizens Support Fund (CSF) are north of the harbour – Homebuilders Family Services in Warkworth and the Beneficiaries Advocacy and Information Service at Glenfield.

I’ve never heard of those groups and that is how it should be. they just get on with the job of assisting individuals needing an advocate. It is when such groups use their taxpayer funding to be a public lobby group that I have a problem.