Youth payments
Brodie Fraser made this Official Information request to Ministry of Social Development
The request was partially successful.
From: Brodie Fraser
Tēnā koe MSD,
Can I please request the following information:
1: The number of youth payment applications in the past five years, broken down by the number of successful and unsuccessful applications each year.
2: The number of youth payment applications that were unsuccessful due to not meeting the "your relationship with your parents or guardians has broken down and no one can support you financially" criteria in the Parental Support Gap requirements (as listed on the application criteria on the WINZ website https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/produc... ).
3: The number of youth payment applications that were unsuccessful due to not meeting the "there is a good reason why you can no longer live with your parents or guardian, or be supported by them or anyone else" criteria in the Parental Support Gap requirements (as listed on the application criteria on the WINZ website https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/produc... ).
4: The number of youth payment applications that included reference to LGBTIQ+ identity, broken down by successful and unsuccessful payments.
5: Any relevant records (emails, briefings, memos, case manager notes, etc) of cases where a young person has had applied for a youth payment on the grounds of a parental support gap due to the young person's LGBTIQ+ identity.
6: Any relevant records (emails, briefings, memos, case manager notes, etc) of cases where a young person has had unsuccessfully applied for a youth payment on the grounds of a parental support gap due to the young person's LGBTIQ+ identity, including reasoning as to why the application was denied.
From: OIA_Requests (MSD)
Ministry of Social Development
Tēnā koe Brodie Fraser
Thank you for your email received 21 August 2019, under the Official
Information Act 1982. Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate
officials at National Office to respond. You may expect a decision
regarding your request to be sent to you as soon as possible.
Nā mātou noa, nā
Official and Parliamentary Information team | Ministerial and
Executive Services
Ministry of Social Development
Our Purpose:
We help New Zealanders to be safe, strong and independent
Manaaki Tangata, Manaaki Whānau
------------------------------- This email and any attachments may contain
information that is confidential and subject to legal privilege. If you
are not the intended recipient, any use, dissemination, distribution or
duplication of this email and attachments is prohibited. If you have
received this email in error please notify the author immediately and
erase all copies of the email and attachments. The Ministry of Social
Development accepts no responsibility for changes made to this message or
attachments after transmission from the Ministry.
-------------------------------
From: OIA_Requests (MSD)
Ministry of Social Development
Dear Brodie Fraser
On 21 August 2019 you emailed the Ministry requesting, under the Official
Information Act 1982, the following information:
1: The number of youth payment applications in the past five years, broken
down by the number of successful and unsuccessful applications each year.
2: The number of youth payment applications that were unsuccessful due to
not meeting the "your relationship with your parents or guardians has
broken down and no one can support you financially" criteria in the
Parental Support Gap requirements (as listed on the application criteria
on the WINZ website
[1]https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/produc...).
3: The number of youth payment applications that were unsuccessful due to
not meeting the "there is a good reason why you can no longer live with
your parents or guardian, or be supported by them or anyone else" criteria
in the Parental Support Gap requirements (as listed on the application
criteria on the WINZ website
[2]https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/produc...).
4: The number of youth payment applications that included reference to
LGBTIQ+ identity, broken down by successful and unsuccessful payments.
5: Any relevant records (emails, briefings, memos, case manager notes,
etc) of cases where a young person has had applied for a youth payment on
the grounds of a parental support gap due to the young person's LGBTIQ+
identity.
6: Any relevant records (emails, briefings, memos, case manager notes,
etc) of cases where a young person has had unsuccessfully applied for a
youth payment on the grounds of a parental support gap due to the young
person's LGBTIQ+ identity, including reasoning as to why the application
was denied.
The Ministry has decided to grant your request in part, namely information
which relates to the number of youth payment applications in the past five
years, broken down by the number of successful and unsuccessful
applications each year. However, it will take some time to prepare this
information for release. The information will be sent to you by 9 October
2019. The Ministry has also decided to refuse the information you
requested in questions two, three, four, five and six under section 18(f)
of the Official Information Act. In order to provide you with this
information Ministry staff would have to manually review thousands of
files. As such I refuse your request under section 18(f) of the Official
Information Act. The greater public interest is in the effective and
efficient administration of the public service.
I have considered whether the Ministry would be able to respond to your
request given extra time, or the ability to charge for the information
requested. I have concluded that, in either case, the Ministry’s ability
to undertake its work would still be prejudiced.
Although we cannot answer your second and third questions, we have
provided some information regarding declined Youth Payment applications.
We hope that this will be useful to you. The Ministry has therefore
decided to release the information to you by 9 October 2019.
If you wish to discuss this decision with us, please feel free to contact
[3][MSD request email]
If you are not satisfied with this decision, you have the right to seek an
investigation and review by the Ombudsman. Information about how to make a
complaint is available at [4]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Official and Parliamentary Information team | Ministerial and
Executive Services
Ministry of Social Development
Our Purpose:
We help New Zealanders to be safe, strong and independent.
Manaaki Tangata, Manaaki Whânau.
------------------------------- This email and any attachments may contain
information that is confidential and subject to legal privilege. If you
are not the intended recipient, any use, dissemination, distribution or
duplication of this email and attachments is prohibited. If you have
received this email in error please notify the author immediately and
erase all copies of the email and attachments. The Ministry of Social
Development accepts no responsibility for changes made to this message or
attachments after transmission from the Ministry.
-------------------------------
References
Visible links
1. https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/produc...
2. https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/produc...
3. mailto:[MSD request email]
4. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/
From: OIA_Requests (MSD)
Ministry of Social Development
Tçnâ koe Brodie Fraser
Please find attached the Ministry’s response to your Official Information
Act request.
Nâ mâtou noa, nâ
Official and Parliamentary Information team | Ministerial and
Executive Services
Ministry of Social Development
Our Purpose:
We help New Zealanders to be safe, strong and independent.
Manaaki Tangata, Manaaki Whânau.
------------------------------- This email and any attachments may contain
information that is confidential and subject to legal privilege. If you
are not the intended recipient, any use, dissemination, distribution or
duplication of this email and attachments is prohibited. If you have
received this email in error please notify the author immediately and
erase all copies of the email and attachments. The Ministry of Social
Development accepts no responsibility for changes made to this message or
attachments after transmission from the Ministry.
-------------------------------
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Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
It's disappointing that MSD has been unable to release much of this information effectively due to their own low quality record keeping processes.
Also frustrating that they chose to use an inaccessible image-based PDF format for responding to this request. This also means the data in those tables in their PDF would have to be copied by hand before the data they contain could be used.
If you want to avoid that particular annoyance in the future, I've been advised by the Ombudsman to request that information be released in an accessible format, and agencies should be required to do so under s16(2) of the OIA unless they have a good reason not to.
Link to this