Special Benefit: Recent Administrative Changes
This article, first published in the Wellington People's Centre November 2002 newsletter, covers changes to administration by WINZ of special benefits.
Over the past few months advocates from the Wellington People's Centre and Downtown Community Ministry, on behalf of the National Beneficiary Advocacy Group, have been working with the Ministry of Social Development to improve the administration of special benefit.
Special benefit is a benefit that is paid to people in financial hardship (you do not have to be receiving a 'main' benefit such as unemployment benefit and domestic purposes benefit to receive special benefit).
In July 2000 reports published by Wellington People's Centre and Downtown Community Ministry showed that only about 7% of people eligible for special benefit were actually receiving it.
The New Processes
New processes have begun to be implemented which have resulted in a significant increase in the number of people assessed for, and granted, special benefit.
The main change has been that when a person applies for a Special Needs Grant (for example a food grant) or recoverable assistance the person should be given a special benefit application form and invited to apply for special benefit.
The graph below illustrates the impact this simple administrative change has had nationally on the grants per week of special benefit. The new procedure was introduced on 16 August 2002 (shown by the vertical line in the graph below).
The graph illustrates that despite doubling the number of applications assessed by Work and Income, the percentage of applications declined did not significantly alter. This indicates that one of the main barriers to a person receiving special benefit has been getting an application accepted and assessed.
These changes have arisen due to a number of factors. First, the reports put out by the Wellington People's Centre and Downtown Community Ministry in July 2000 that highlighted the very large number of people not receiving a special benefit but who were, at least on the face of it, eligible for special benefit.
Second, in January 2002, advocates from around New Zealand carried out a 'benefit impact' in Rotorua organised by Paul Blair, a beneficiary advocate based in Rotorua. The primary purpose of the impact was to encourage and assist people to apply for special benefit — though advocates found many other issues people needed assistance with in regard to Work and Income.
The ultimate success of the impact can be put down to the co-operation forged between advocates and the local Work and Income Regional Commissioner. The Regional Commissioner not only ensured easy access to Work and Income staff during the impact he followed up on the impact by introducing a number of administrate change that resulted in the number of special benefits paid in the Rotorua office jumping from around 200 to over 700 within a matter of months. Before the impact the Rotorua office had had one of the lowest grant rates for special benefit but now has one of the highest.
Another factor that lead to the establishment of a joint working group of advocates and Work and Income national office staff was a report in 2002 by the Downtown Community Ministry. This report showed that in addition to the low number of people receiving special benefit there were also wide variations between Work and Income offices. For example, in the Kapiti office over 50% of those eligible received special benefit while at other offices the percentage was often 2% or less (the national average at the time was 7.7% — it is now over 15%).
The administrative changes in Rotorua are now seen as 'best practice' by Work and Income and are being phased in nationally.
Other changes taking place include training for Work and Income staff. It is hoped that as these new administrative procedures take effect there everyone eligible for special benefit will actually receives it.