Giving welfare recipients choice ups costs, improves outcomes, says ProdCom

By Pattrick Smellie
April 28 (BusinessDesk) - Letting people choose how their government funds for social service are spent is likely to be more costly than traditional delivery through government agencies because people making choices tend to use their full entitlements, according to the Productivity Commission's draft report on "effective social services", issued today for public submissions.
The move to "client-based" funding of social services is a key element of the government's social policy reforms, which are in turn backed by the...
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