The changing role of MSD

The release of Treasury's briefing to the incoming government has provoked a flurry of stories as journalists have hit the web to seek out briefings by other government departments. The most intreresting of these is probably the Ministry of Social Development's. The media has focused on a few sections of the MSD's briefing [PDF] - a rise in "sin taxes" to discourage alcohol and tobacco use, and a possible reintroduction of work-testing for the DPB - but at the same time they've missed the interesting story: how the focus of MSD has changed from paying benefits to looking at "social development" in its widest sense. Look at the deparment's priority issues: improving education, increasing opportunities, promoting healthy eating and discouraging drinking and smoking, preventing family violence. None of these are really what we'd consider to be the core business of the old Departments of Social Welfare or Work and Income - but they are key to MSD's new goal of improving social outcomes for all New Zealanders. And their preferred way of doing it is by "social investment" (e.g. in education, so that people can get jobs) rather than "social protection" (paying people the dole). They've clearly been reading the good bits of Giddens...

Basically, Labour's creation of MSD as a "super-ministry" has allowed them to take a wider focus on social policy, just as Treasury does on economic policy. And it has introduced real contestability of policy advice. In the past, Treasury has consistently outgunned other ministries because they could afford more policy analysts (cutting their competititon's budgets also helped a bit here). Thankfully, this is no longer the case.