18 Feb 2015

Massive scale-up of WINZ security

2:54 pm on 18 February 2015

The chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development says there's been a massive scaling-up of security at Work and Income offices since last year's fatal shooting in Ashburton.

Two workers were shot dead and another wounded at the Ashburton Work and Income office in September.

Brendan Boyle told a parliamentary select committee today that reviews have led to security doors being installed at offices, identification checks for some people entering sites and many more security guards.

"Since the first week after the event we went from 160 security guards across our Work and Income sites, to over 400.

"So that went from on average one per site to at least two, and in some bigger sites, three. Which is obviously a big scaling up, quite quickly."

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