The beginnings of the family budgeting advice service in New Zealand

Abstract

This study examines the development of the budgeting services in New Zealand which has occurred over the last twenty-five years. Three phases in this history are suggested on the basis of policy changes arising from alterations in the involvement of the State. Of particular interest to the writer is the first of these periods. Since these events have not been previously documented to any extent, it has seemed worthwhile to try and fill this omission while a number of the main participants are available to pass on their accounts. In the initial chapter, some discussion of the lack of literature referring to budgeting in either a theoretical or practical way is made. An outline of Hall et al's model of the policy formation process is given, and some attempt is made to place their model within the recent social policy literature. They argue that there are three main types of social policy change: innovation, development and reform; and that there are both general criteria which are aspects of the political system (legitimacy, feasibility and support); and specific attributes of any given issue (association and scope, crises, trend expectation and prevention, origin, information, and ideology) that affect its adoption, partial adoption or rejection as policy. An overview is provided in chapter two of the development of the budgeting services from 1959 to the present day. This general description of the budgeting services has three purposes: historical, sociological, and as a background to the subsequent case study of the first phase. This follows in chapter three, where the ideas of Hall et al are utilised to help explain the involvement of the Department of Maori Affairs in the budgeting services. From the presentation of the historical material, a process of policy formation in relation to budgeting can be seen to emerge. Chapter four brings together the preceding material and makes some discussion of the use of Hall et al's model in the explanation of social policy change, and concludes with some brief suggestions for further research.