IN-CONFIDENCE
21 December 2023
Jessica
[FYI request #24881 email]
Tēnā koe Jessica
On 27 November 2023, you requested information regarding the Student
Allowance (SA) to the Ministry of Education, in accordance with the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act). The Ministry of Social Development (the
Ministry) accepted transfer of parts four and five of your request.
Please find my decision on each part of your request set out separately below.
4.) The total amount of students who have received student allowance
each year and how many have received the full student allowance
entitlement since 2005. If those who received any student allowance
can also be divided into undergraduate/postgraduate, under
24/above 24, with/without children, with a partner/without a partner
The Ministry considers most qualifications at Level 8 or above of the New
Zealand Qualifications Authority Framework (the Framework) to be
postgraduate level. The exception to that rule is Bachelors degrees with
Honours, which retained eligibility for the Student Allowance. They are
considered undergraduate qualifications for the purposes of the policy.
Table
1 of the attached
Appendix 1 includes a breakdown showing the number of
students receiving SA between 2005 and 2022 and whether they were
receiving it while studying at postgraduate level.
Students who commenced study toward qualifications at Level 8 or above of
the Framework after 1 January 2013 were ineligible for the SA. You will see
this change in policy reflected in the ‘Postgraduate’ column of Table 1. Further
information about the policy is available here:
www.workandincome.govt.nz/map/students/student-allowance/programmes-
not-recognised-01.html.
Page 1 of 5
IN-CONFIDENCE
Data showing the number of SA recipients above and below age 24, whether
they had children, their relationship status between 1999 and 2023, and the
number of students who received the Accommodation Benefit (AB), is publicly
available here:
www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-
resources/statistics/studylink/archive/index.html.
Table 2 of the attached
Appendix 2 shows the number of students who have
received the full rate of SA and those whose payments were abated between
2005 and 2022.
5.) The total amount of students who have received a student
allowance and accommodation benefit too and what region they live
in, since 2005
Please refer to
Table 3 of the attached
Appendix which shows the number of
students who have received SA in the period 2005-2022, broken down by
region and year.
It should be noted, the Ministry’s regional breakdown is based on the New
Zealand post code system that changed in 2006 and came into full use in 2008.
Consequently, there are several SA recipients between 2005 and 2008 for
whom the Ministry did not record the new post code. This is reflected in the
‘Incorrect new post code’ row of
Table 3 in Appendix 2
.
Matching the entries in the ‘Incorrect new post code’ category with the new
post code system would require the Ministry to divert personnel from their core
duties and allocate extra time to complete this task. The diversion of these
resources would impair the Ministry’s ability to continue standard operations
and would be an inefficient use of the Ministry’s resources. As such, your
request is refused under section 18(f) of the Act, as it requires substantial
collation. 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.
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IN-CONFIDENCE
If you wish to discuss this response with us, please feel free to contact
[email address].
If you are not satisfied with my decision, 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
pp.
Magnus O’Neill
General Manager
Ministerial and Executive Services
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IN-CONFIDENCE
Appendix 1
Table 1- The number of students receiving SA between 2005 and 2022 and whether they were receiving
it while studying at postgraduate level
Level
Total
Unknown
Other
Secondary
Postgraduate
2005
2,187
50,091
1,482
3,045
56,805
2006
1,983
53,109
1,386
2,958
59,433
2007
1,524
56,835
1,344
2,772
62,481
2008
912
60,444
1,437
2,907
65,700
2009
609
76,161
2,034
3,831
82,635
2010
474
88,563
2,109
4,803
95,943
2011
99
92,043
2,091
5,037
99,273
2012
15
90,033
1,872
4,995
96,909
2013
6
81,924
1,674
1,491
85,092
2014
3
78,240
1,323
102
79,668
2015
6
73,794
1,242
9
75,051
2016
6
70,059
963
3
71,028
2017
6
64,458
888
3
65,352
2018
3
63,822
906
-
64,728
2019
3
61,665
828
-
62,496
2020
3
60,897
822
-
61,722
2021
3
62,112
699
3
62,814
2022
3
50,877
546
-
51,426
IN-CONFIDENCE
Notes regarding Table 1:
• 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.
• Information about qualification level QACC Code was only available since October 2012 so some early programs paid will
not have a code so qualification level cannot be determined.
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Document Outline
