Kia ora,

 

Our head office is closed from 2pm, Thursday 24 December 2020 until 7am,
Tuesday 5th January 2021.

 

The OIA_requests inbox will not be monitored during this period.

 

If you are making a request for Official Information, please be advised
that for Official Information Act 1982 requests, the following days are
not counted as working days:

1. 25 December 2020 – 15 January 2021 – Summer Holidays

2. 2 January 2021 – Day after New year’s Day

 

We will attend to your query as soon as we can, upon re-opening.

 

Nā mātou noa, nā

 

Official and Parliamentary Information team   |  Ministerial and
Executive Services

Ministry of Social Development

 

Our Purpose:
We help New Zealanders to help themselves to be safe, strong and
independent
Ko ta mātou he whakamana tangata kia tū haumaru, kia tū kaha, kia tū
motuhake

 

 

Tēnā koe Lance Watson

 

Thank you for your email received 29 December 2020, under the Official
Information Act 1982. Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate
officials at National Office to respond. You can expect a decision as soon
as reasonably practicable, and in any case not later than 20 working days
after the day on which the request was received.

 

Nā mātou noa, nā

 

Official and Parliamentary Information team   |  Ministerial and
Executive Services

Ministry of Social Development

 

Our Purpose:
We help New Zealanders to help themselves to be safe, strong and
independent
Ko ta mātou he whakamana tangata kia tū haumaru, kia tū kaha, kia tū
motuhake

 

------------------------------- 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.
-------------------------------

Tēnā koe Lance Watson

At present your request for all information is very broad, and substantial manual collation would be required to locate and prepare all information within scope of your request. As such, The Ministry would likely have to refuse your request under section 18(f) of the Official Information Act. As the greater public interest is in the effective and efficient administration of the public service.

This is due to a number of factors that would make obtaining this information difficult and time consuming to be able to do. For the period prior to 1992, benefit increases were often made on the basis of when they were necessary or needed, with several adjustments occurring in some years. For example, in July 1972 benefit rates were restructured following the recommendations of the Royal Commission.

The Ministry does not hold on file a compiled list of all the rates and changes from 1964 – 1992 for all benefits paid during these years. There are a significant number of different payments and many new ones were introduced during this time. The task of finding out the calculation model used for each adjustment is complex. The relevant information could likely be located in individual working papers which have been archived, and that the Ministry would have to manually locate and review.

I am contacting you to ask whether your request could be amended to be for a smaller amount of information. The information the Ministry could potentially provide would consist of a general description of how rates were adjusted historically. Some of this information is publicly available resource ‘Social Assistance Chronology’ which covers many of the policy changes over this period, and includes some information on benefit rate adjustments (However, this is not comprehensive enough to fulfil your current request). The Ministry could also source a list of all rate changes for the Unemployment Benefit from 1964 to 1992, as this information is held on file. However, the Ministry cannot provide you the calculation or reason for each change, or provide a comprehensive list for any other benefit.

Please confirm on how you wish to amend your request, and please note that any clarification or amendment of a request is considered to be a new request for the purpose of calculating the maximum statutory timeframe for response under Section 15(1AA) of the Official Information Act.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Nā mātou noa, nā

Official and Parliamentary Information team | Ministerial and Executive Services
Ministry of Social Development

Our Purpose:
We help New Zealanders to help themselves to be safe, strong and independent
Ko ta mātou he whakamana tangata kia tū haumaru, kia tū kaha, kia tū motuhake

-----Original Message-----
From: Lance Watson <[FOI #14376 email]>
Sent: Tuesday, 29 December 2020 10:23 AM
To: OIA_Requests (MSD) <[MSD request email]>
Subject: Official Information request - Benefit rate changes 1964-1992

Kia ora Ministry of Social Development,

I would like to request details of the changes in rates of all main benefits from 1964 (Implementation of the Social Security Act 1964) to 1992.

I'm aware that the rates themselves are contained within Social Security Amendment Acts each year, however these do not show the method used to determine new rates.

Specifically, the calculations used to determine the exact changes in rates any time these rates changed.

I'll give an example of a later year to show the kind of detail I'm looking for:

Example:
On 1 April 1992, the rate of Unemployment Benefit for a Single, 18-24 year old increased from $108.17 to $109.25.

This was based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment for "All Groups" (SE9A) increasing from 731.06613 to 738.22069, which was an increase of 1.009786%, this was rounded to the nearest full percentage, 1.000000% (In subsequent years, the rounding method changed).

Thus, $108.17 * 1.01 = $109.25

Summary of my request:
Could you please provide a table of payment rates showing every change in rates of main benefits between 1964 to 1992 (inclusive) that shows the following detail:
- The rates each time they changed.
- The calculation used to get from the previous rate, to the new rate. (Including how any rounding is done during the calculation).
- What that calculation is made up of (i.e. CPI, or other ad-hoc changes such as the 1991 benefit decreases)

Ngā mihi,
Lance Watson

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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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