We took action to put things right
We don’t always get things right. However we do want to take action to correct errors when they come to light.
People who want us to reconsider decisions made about their benefit can use a formal review process
We administer benefits and pensions entitlements for over a million people. The benefit review process is designed to ensure that people who do not agree with a decision we have made on their benefit have access to an independent review of that decision.
We make about five million decisions a year that can be reviewed, with about 0.1 percent of those decisions resulting in a request for a review [27].
If a review of decision fails to resolve the issue, it can be referred to a Benefit Review Committee (BRC). We received 5,000 [28] applications for review of decisions, of which about 65 percent were resolved without going to the BRC stage. Of the 1,504 applications that were resolved by a BRC, 1,156 (77 percent – consistent with recent years) confirmed the original decision, 139 (9 percent) varied the original decision, 194 (13 percent) were revoked, and 15 were outside the jurisdiction of the BRC.
Correcting previous errors resulting from differences between practice and policy
Ideally legislation and MSD policy should be clear and in alignment, and our practice should reflect this alignment, but this has not always happened. When there are issues of practice not reflecting policy, options for resolving them can involve making changes to our IT systems, practice, policy, or even legislation.
In 2016 we identified 36 situations where legislation, policy and practice were not aligned. By 30 June 2018:
- 11 of these had been found not to be anomalies
- 15 had been resolved
- three were to be corrected through updated social security legislation
- one was to be included in the options for enhancing New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran's Pension
- two had been referred to other countries to correct
- four still required work to fix.
Correcting earlier Accommodation Supplement errors
One of the 36 situations that we identified was an issue impacting 114,000 people who receive the Accommodation Supplement. We paid all current clients who had been affected by this issue their historical entitlements, and we are now investigating what else we can do to locate and contact non-current clients who have not received their money. We have repaid more than 21,000 people over $14.6 million.
People who should have received Temporary Additional Support instead of Special Benefit
We identified 8,241 current and former clients who would have been better off moving from Special Benefit to Temporary Additional Support when we introduced the latter in 2006. In April 2018 we contacted people who were affected by this issue to advise them what had happened, to apologise, and to invite them to move to Temporary Additional Support by using our simple online inquiry form. As at 30 June 2018 we had paid over 60 percent of our current clients what we had owed them – a total of almost $5 million.
Footnote
[27] The figures in this section do not include decisions on Student Allowances made under the Education Act 1989, which are subject to a separate review process and do not go to aBenefit Review Committee.
[28] This compares with 4,736 in 2016/2017 and represents an increase of nearly 5.6 percent. The increase is mainly related to Child Care Assistance and Housing Assistance Special Needs Grant decisions.
