Performance targets for emergency housing up to MSD - Tama Potaka

The associate housing minister is distancing himself from controversy around the Ministry of Social Development's (MSD) performance targets for emergency housing.

It comes as the government faces pressure over its support for rough sleepers following revelations MSD managers have performance agreements related to reducing emergency housing numbers.

TVNZ's Q+A revealed MSD managers were assessed on keeping emergency housing numbers below the government's targets, and could be pulled into line if they were not.

The Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson labelled that a perverse incentive to decline people emergency housing.

Minister Tama Potaka told Morning Report the matter ultimately sat with the ministry's leadership.

"How [the targets] are weighed up and how they are measured and how that is operationalised is something that is the purview of the chief executive of that organisation," he said.

The government had set out a target of a 75 percent reduction of people in emergency housing.

When asked if he had been informed of the performance metric, Potaka said he was not "right in the detail" of MSD's performance management.

"I wouldn't expect that either, given that Debbie Power is the CEO and is in charge of that and has the operational responsibility," he said.

He also would not be drawn on whether he was happy with the arrangement, again deferring to Power.

Potaka said there had been significant ground made up around emergency housing, citing a drop in the number of children living in motels in Hamilton.

"We know that all children that have come out of motels through priority one have gone to social housing. That's what we do know for sure," he said.

"Now, there are some families that do leave emergency housing and other types of housing provision, we don't know where they are going to.

"We're not Big Brother."

MSD's client service support general manager Graham Allpress said staff did not leave people with nowhere to go.

"Around 70% of people who are not granted Emergency Housing are offered an alternative housing support such as transitional housing, rent arrears assistance to help them stay in their current property or assistance into a private rental with a bond in advance payment," his statement said.

In Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said his government had a better record on housing than his Labour predecessors, in response to questions from Labour leader Chris Hipkins.

Robinson had said homelessness was the highest level she had seen in 13 years.

Potaka countered this on Thursday, claiming homelessness numbers had dropped in the country's biggest city.

"In Auckland, homelessness and rough sleeping has reduced considerably," he said.

"You talk to the leading provider of Housing First provision and transitional housing in Auckland, the provider that has the most spots and places that are funded, she will tell you that those numbers have come down considerably.

"You talk to Auckland Council, those people who do the wake-up calls for people sleeping on the street in central Auckland every single morning have told me those numbers have gone down considerably over the last 12 months."