Our story overview - Annual Report 2019/20
We supported New Zealanders with our core range of services
Our full range of services (see Appendix 1) continued while we also set up and delivered a further series of support measures as part of the response to the impact of COVID-19.
In the months before COVID-19, our work programme was focused on our strategic direction, Te Pae Tawhiti. We sought to achieve outcomes in areas such as:
- getting financial assistance to people as they needed it
- overhauling the welfare system
- getting people into employment
- enabling access to housing
- partnering with communities
- addressing family violence
- supporting disabled people and seniors to participate fully in society
- improving client experience.
Historically we have been responsible for paying out between $20 billion and $25 billion a year in assistance payments. This year new programmes, related to COVID-19 and the recommendations adopted by the Government in response to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s 2019 report, pushed that figure to almost $40 billion.
We progressed the Government’s overhaul of the welfare system
We have taken the lead role in advising the Government on the overhaul work programme, which was agreed in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, and we implemented the following changes:
- indexation of main benefit payments to the average wage rather than the Consumer Price Index, from the April 2020 Annual General Adjustment, which resulted in a larger rise in benefit rates
- the repeal of section 192 of the Social Security Act 2018, which had provided for deductions from benefit payments for a sole parent who did not apply for Child Support, in April 2020 – meaning sole parents retain more of their benefit entitlement
- an increase in the abatement thresholds for main benefits from April 2020, which gives people the opportunity to earn more before their benefit starts to abate
- an increase in our frontline employment-focused case management capacity [1], which means we can help more people get into work
- the expansion of employment services like Mana in Mahi and Oranga Mahi, which provide more people with employment and training opportunities.
Supported into work in 2019/20:
74,715 people
4,497 more people than in 2018/19, an increase of 6.4 percent.
By February 2020 we were proactively engaging with more than 17,000 clients each month – the highest employment-focused engagement rate since February 2018. We helped more people to leave the benefit system to go to a job this year, in spite of the disruption to employment-focused case management caused by the need to implement income support initiatives in response to COVID-19. More than 48,500 of the 74,474 exits from benefit to work recorded in the 2019 calendar year were sustained, that is, the client stayed off the benefit system for at least six months.
We made a significant investment ($445 million) in employment-related activities and programmes – in both internal case management and externally contracted and provided services.
Our regional employment teams work with community providers to deliver a range of products and services that are relevant to the needs of their local labour markets and aim to improve client work-readiness or result in employment outcomes. Examples include driver licensing, CV services, workability assessments, seasonal work transportation, site safety, forklift training, first aid certificates and endorsements, and other interventions that support self/work motivation and confidence. Products and services aimed at improving employment outcomes include Skills for Industry programmes, Mana in Mahi, Employment Placement Services, Work to Wellness, Training for Work, and Iwi-based employment initiatives.
By 30 June 2020, 832 people had participated in Mana in Mahi opportunities since the programme started in August 2018, including 561 who started in Phase Two in or after July 2019.
Footnotes
- We received funding in Budget 2019 for 263 extra positions, 170 of which we had deployed by June 2020. Return to text
