UPDATED 6.22PM A judge has ruled the Ministry of Social Development did not take all practicable steps to protect staff before the Ashburton shooting.

LISTEN ABOVE: Larry Williams speaks to partner of SBM legal employment law Bridget Smith about the MSD ruling.  

Judge Jan-Marie Doogue this morning released her decision in relation to the 2014 fatal WINZ shootings.

She said the chance of client-initiated violence in that office was predictable.

Judge Doogue said a physical barrier between case managers and their clients was a reasonable practicable step to have taken to address that hazard.

She said some form of physical barrier would help to delay a client reaching staff, however was not convinced this would have stopped Russell John Tully.

According to the ruling, MSD has estimated it could cost between $13 and $27 million to upgrade its offices nationwide.

In her ruling, Judge Doogue said, given the severity of potential harm, potential risk, and MSD's large operating budget, she's satisfied the cost would not be disproportionate.

Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni said it is a big cost, but at the end of the day this is about lives and ensuring staff are safe in their workplace.

She said any cost that has to be worn by the Government to ensure staff are safe while they work in the public sector has to be worth paying.

Ms Sepuloni said the Government now has to look at what needs to be done to protect MSD staff.

"There are some pretty clear recommendations here about what needs to happen, and so it's their responsibility now to make that happen. That is about ensuring that there's adequate zoning, that staff are adequately trained."

Green MP Jan Logie believes front line staff require better training to reduce the anxiety of beneficiaries, so they're not coming into offices with a level of desperation.

"There's an acknowledgement in that ruling of the predictability of the hazard of client-initiated violence. We have to look at what role the actual policies might be playing in creating that risk."

Logie's take on the judgement is that MSD failed to protect its staff and that a violent attack was predictable.

"From that I read that we have a culture in our ministries of scrimping on money and that has ultimately much, much higher costs."

A sentence date is yet to be set.