Holly Willson
[FYI request #17000 email]
Tēnā koe Holly Willson
On  1 October 2021,  you emailed the Ministry  of Social Development (the Ministry)
requesting, under the Official Information Act 1982  (the Act), the following
information:
1. Please provide me with the number, gender and age of recipients receiving the
Sole Parent Support benefit by quarter periods, for the quarters ended June
2020, September 2020, December 2020, March 2021, June 2021 (by quarter)
2. Please provide me with the number and age of children living in households
receiving the Sole Parent Support benefit by quarter, for the quarters ended
June 2020, September 2020, December 2020, March 2021, June 2021,
September 2021.
3. Please provide me with the incidence of households receiving the Sole Parent
Support in conjunction with the Accommodation Supplement, Jobseeker
Support, and/or the Emergency Benefit or Emergency Maintenance Support by
quarter for the quarters ended: June 2020, September 2020, December 2020,
March 2021, June 2021, September 2021.
On  17  October  2021,  you  emailed  the  Ministry  requesting  that  the  data  be  broken
down further by ethnicity.
On 28 October 2021, the Ministry emailed you of the need to extend your request as
more time was required for necessary consultations, in accordance with section 15(1)
and 15A of the Act.
Sole Parent Support provides income support for sole parents with one or more
dependent children. A client applying for Sole Parent Support must have one or more
dependent children (the dependent child or the youngest dependent child must be
aged under 14 years) and be one of the following:
•
living  apart from their partner and lost the support or being inadequately
maintained by their partner
•
divorced or had their civil union dissolved
•
single (never had a partner)
•
has lost the regular support of their partner as their partner has been
imprisoned or is subject to release or detention conditions that prevent
employment, or
•
their partner has died
To qualify for Sole Parent Support a client must also:
•
be aged 20 years or older
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•
have continuously lived in New Zealand for 2 years or more since becoming a
New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, and
•
be ordinarily resident in New Zealand when they first apply for benefit
You can find more information  regarding Sole Parent Support at the following link:
www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/income-support/main-benefits/sole-parent-
support/introduction.html.
For  the  sake  of  clarity,  the  Ministry  will  address  your  questions  in  turn:
1. Please provide me with the number, gender and age of recipients receiving the
Sole Parent Support benefit by quarter periods, for the quarters ended June
2020, September 2020, December 2020, March 2021, June 2021 (by quarter)
You can find this information in the Benefit Fact Sheet on the Ministry’s website at the
following  link:  www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-
resources/statistics/benefit/2021/quarterly-benefit-fact-sheets-national-benefit-
tables-june-2021.xlsx.
As this information is already publicly available, this part of your request is refused
under section 18(d) of the Act.
2. Please provide me with the number and age of children living in households
receiving the Sole Parent Support benefit by quarter, for the quarters ended
June 2020, September 2020, December 2020, March 2021, June 2021,
September 2021.
Please see enclosed Appendix A, which includes the following two tables:
•
Table One: The number of children included in Sole Parent Support
applications as at the quarters ending June 2020 to September 2021, broken
down by age group.
•
Table Two:  The number of children included in Sole Parent Support as at
quarters ending June 2020 to September 2021, broken down by ethnicity of
beneficiary.
Please note the ethnicity classification that is used to construct this table does not
necessarily align with the current Statistics New Zealand classification of ethnicity.
Ethnicity details recorded  by the Ministry have been gathered under a variety of
classification methods as clients come into contact with the Ministry. The ethnicity data
may be self-identified based on an individual’s preference or self-construct.  While the
Ministry collects multiple ethnicities from clients, we only report a unique form of
‘identified’  ethnicity  for  core  benefit  data  (one  ethnic  group  per  person  with  Māori
coming first, Pacific groups second followed by other groups ending with NZ European).
3. Please provide me with the incidence of households receiving the Sole Parent
Support in conjunction with the Accommodation Supplement, Jobseeker
Support, and/or the Emergency Benefit or Emergency Maintenance Support by
quarter for the quarters ended: June 2020, September 2020, December 2020,
March 2021, June 2021, September 2021.
This  is  not  standard  reporting  for  the  Ministry  and  would  require  substantial
manual  collation  to  generate  the  data.    As  such,  this  part  of  your  request  is
refused under
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section 18(f) of the Act. The greater public interest is in the effective and efficient
administration of the public service.
In the Spirit of being helpful, please see attached the following table in Appendix A:
•
Table Three:  The number of clients  receiving  Sole Parent Support and the
Accommodation Supplement simultaneously, as at quarters ending June 2020
to September 2021.
The principles and purposes of the Official Information Act 1982 under which you made
your request are:
• to create greater openness  and  transparency  about  the  plans,  work  and
activities of the Government,
• to  increase  the  ability  of  the  public  to  participate  in  the  making  and
administration of our laws and policies and
• to lead to greater accountability in the conduct of public affairs.
This Ministry fully supports those principles and purposes. The Ministry therefore
intends to make the information contained in this letter and any attached documents
available to the wider public. The Ministry will do this by publishing this on the Ministry
of Social Development’s website. Your personal details will be deleted, and the Ministry
will not publish any information that would identify you as the person who requested
the information.
If you wish to discuss this response with us, please feel free to contact
[MSD request email].
If you are not satisfied with this response regarding the number of children included
in Sole Parent Support, you have the right to seek an investigation and review by the
Ombudsman.  Information  about  how  to  make  a  complaint  is  available  at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi nui
Bridget Saunders
Manager, Issues Resolution
Service Delivery
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Appendix A.
Table One: The number of children included in Sole Parent Support as at the
quarters ending June 2020 to September 2021, broken down by age group.
Quarter Ending  Under 5 years  Age 5-13 years  Over 13 years
Total Number of
Children
Children
Children
Children
June 2020
42,237
72,720
11,274
126,231
September 2020  42,876
74,985
12,150
130,011
December 2020
43,614
77,559
11,892
133,065
March 2021
43,005
76,899
12,207
132,114
June 2021
42,876
75,834
12,405
131,115
September 2021  43,308
76,617
13,026
132,948
Table  Two: The number of children included in Sole Parent Support as at
quarters ending June 2020 to September 2021, broken down by ethnicity of
beneficiary.
Ethnicity of B
  eneficiary
Quarter Ending
Māori
Pacific
NZ European
Other
Unspecified  Total Number of
Children  Children
Children
Children
Children
Children
June 2020
62,424
15,879
32,490
12,192
3,246
126,231
September 2020  63,918
16,446
33,504
12,630
3,516
130,011
December 2020
65,385
16,707
34,236
12,981
3,756
133,062
March 2021
64,839
16,818
33,639
13,002
3,816
132,117
June 2021
64,449
16,626
33,219
12,906
3,918
131,115
September 2021  65,109
16,941
33,531
13,209
4,158
132,951
Table Three: The number of Sole Parent Support receiving Accommodation
Supplement as at quarters ending June 2020 to September 2021.
Quarter Ending
Sole Parent
Support
June 2020
45,138
September 2020
46,716
December 2020
48,198
March 2021
46,122
June 2021
45,744
September 2021
46,431
Notes for Tables One, Two and Three:
•
Table One and Two is a count of children and not benefits.
•
The ethnic group of children is based on the ethnicity of the beneficiary.
•
Ethnicity data is self-identified and multiple ethnicities may be chosen by an individual as fits their
preference or self-concept.
•
Ethnic groups do not currently align with Statistics New Zealand ethnicity groupings
•
To protect confidentiality the Ministry of Social Development uses processes to make it difficult to
identify an individual person or entity from published data.
•
These data tables have had random rounding to base three applied to al  cel  counts in the table.
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•
The impact of applying random rounding is that columns and rows may not add exactly to the given
column or row totals.
•
The published counts wil never differ by more than two counts.
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Document Outline