18 January 2023
A.j Sheppard
[FYI request #21024 email]
Tēnā koe A.j Sheppard
On 3 November 2022 you emailed the Ministry of Social Development (the
Ministry) requesting, under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act), the
following information:
1. The highest accumulated sum paid to an individual welfare recipient
for each year. Please include all benefits, supplements, loans,
state/emergency housing costs and any other assistance that incurred
a cost to New Zealand taxpayers.
2. The highest accumulated sum paid to a couple/household welfare
recipient for each year. Please include all benefits, supplements, loans,
state/emergency housing costs and any other assistance that incurred
a cost to New Zealand taxpayers.
In addition to the above requests I also request figures in regards to length
of time recipients have stayed on welfare. For the purpose of the request
below please exclude any sickness/disability benefit recipients.
1. How many recipients have received some form of welfare
payment/benefit for 5 years or longer?
2. How many recipients have received some form of welfare
payment/benefit for 10yrs or longer?
3. What is the median time period recipients receive the job seeker
benefit?
4. What is the longest period of time a current recipient has been
receiving the job seeker benefit
On 30 November 2022, the Ministry emailed you to advise that more time was
required to respond to your request for information. The reason for the
extension was that consultations necessary to make a decision on the request
are such that a proper response to the request cannot reasonably be made
within the original time limit.
For the sake of clarity, the Ministry will respond to your requests in turn.
1. The highest accumulated sum paid to an individual welfare recipient
for each year. Please include all benefits, supplements, loans,
state/emergency housing costs and any other assistance that incurred
a cost to New Zealand taxpayers.
2. The highest accumulated sum paid to a couple/household welfare
recipient for each year. Please include all benefits, supplements, loans,
state/emergency housing costs and any other assistance that incurred
a cost to New Zealand taxpayers.
Regarding the first two questions of your request, the information you are
seeking is not standard reporting for the Ministry and substantial manual
collation would be required to generate the data. 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.
1. How many recipients have received some form of welfare
payment/benefit for 5 years or longer?
2. How many recipients have received some form of welfare
payment/benefit for 10yrs or longer?
For the number of working age main benefit clients with a continuous duration
for 5 years and more, and 10 years and more as at the end of October 2022,
please see
Table One below.
For the sake of clarity, as requested, any sickness/disability benefit recipients
have been excluded. Supported Living Payment – caring for, has been
included. More information on this payment is available here
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/income-support/main-
benefits/supported-living-payment/caring-for-a-person-01.html.
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Table One: Number of working age main benefit clients with a
continuous duration for 5 years and more and 10 years and more as at
the end of October 2022.
Continuous Duration
Benefit Group
10 years
Total
5<10 years
and over
Emergency
Maintenance Allowance 129
90
216
Sole Parent Support
14,730
8,376
23,106
Supported Living
Payment - Carer
2,070
2,343
4,410
Emergency Benefit
96
36
129
Jobseeker Work Ready
related
7,551
4,605
12,153
Total
24,573
15,450
40,020
Notes
•
Working age is 18 to 64 years old.
•
Main Benefits exclude NZ Superannuation, Veteran's Pension, Non-
Beneficiary assistance, Orphan's Benefit and Unsupported Child's
Benefit.
•
Jobseeker Work Ready related excludes Jobseeker Support Health
Condition, Injury or Disability
•
Supported Living Payment - Carer excludes Supported Living
Payment Health Condition & Disability and Supported Living
Payments Overseas
•
Continuous duration is how long the current recipients of a benefit
(or benefit group) have been continuously receiving a benefit in the
wider benefit system, including time on all benefits except
Unsupported Child's Benefit, Orphan's Benefit, New Zealand
Superannuation, Veteran's Pension and non-beneficiary assistance.
•
To protect confidentiality the Ministry 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 all cell counts in the table.
•
Random rounding does not round down to zero, a value of one or
two will be rounded to three.
•
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 will never differ by more than two counts.
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3. What is the median time period recipients receive the job seeker
benefit?
4. What is the longest period of time a current recipient has been
receiving the job seeker benefit
In response to your questions for median time period and longest time period
on a Jobseeker Support as at the end of October 2022 please see
Table Two
below. For the sake of clarity, as requested, any sickness/disability benefit
recipients have been excluded.
Table Two: The median and maximum of working age Jobseeker
Support Work Ready related continuous duration as at end of October
2022
Continuous
Continuous
Benefit Group
Duration (Days)
Duration (Days)
Median
Maximum
Jobseeker Work Ready related
2,988
16,587
Notes
•
Working age is 18 to 64 years old.
•
While the person who has longest duration in this data was on
Jobseeker at the time this data was retrieved, that doesn’t mean
they were on Job seeker for the entire duration.
•
Continuous duration is how long the current recipients of a benefit
(or benefit group) have been continuously receiving a benefit in the
wider benefit system, including time on all benefits except
Unsupported Child's Benefit, Orphan's Benefit, New Zealand
Superannuation, Veteran's Pension, and non-beneficiary assistance.
•
To protect confidentiality the Ministry 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 all cell counts in the table.
•
Random rounding does not round down to zero, a value of one or
two will be rounded to three.
•
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 will never differ by more than two counts.
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,
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• 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 letter and attachments
on the Ministry’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 benefit durations, 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
Issue Resolution
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Document Outline
