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Download AudioThe Disability Rights Commissioner says proposed changes to the way disability services will be delivered will affect worsen people’s already low trust in the system.
Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced the Ministry of Social Development will take over the management of disability support services and funding, replacing the standalone Whaikaha which will be reduced to a policy ministry.
Commissioner Prudence Walker says Whaikaha is being discarded after two years and before it had time to show it could demonstrate a different way of supporting disabled people.
“These changes along with other recent changes create much uncertainty and in turn I think it is likely to have a negative impact not only in terms of how disabled people feel but also in how much system resource is taken up in focusing on the changes themselves rather than the resource and thinking going into supporting the lives of disabled people. Disabled people just want to go about their lives,” she says.
Ms Walker says there was little consultation and she certainly had no input.
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