The Government has announced it's going to replace the Social Investment Agency - with the Social Wellbeing Agency.

The social investment approach was Bill English’s brainchild to identify and target social services to the most disadvantaged people.

Now the approach is set to get more into "wellbeing".

Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni told Heather du Plessis-Allan it is more than a name change, it is a change in how the agency will operate.

"Under the Government, there was a focus on people being fiscal liabilities, the risk they might pose, the cost to the state. A very narrow focus on the administrative data to make decisions that affect people's lives, and we changed the approach."

She says that lived experience and science will be more of a focus, and people will not be seen as numbers anymore.

"We recognise that people's lives are very complex." 

She denies that they are simply changing the name to deny English's idea its credit, arguing that the previous Government's approach was "very negative".