Families Package Monitoring and Evaluation

The Families Package was introduced in 2018 as part of the government’s focus on reducing child poverty and ensuring children get the best start in life. The package included changes to several income support payments and introduced two new payments, Best Start and the Winter Energy Payment. The Families Package is delivered primarily through MSD and Inland Revenue.

Since 2018, additional changes have been made to income support to further improve incomes for low-and middle-income families with children.

MSD led the work to monitor and evaluate the impacts of Families Package initiatives and subsequent income support changes. The work programme included:

• Summary of findings
• Reports monitoring receipt of payments
• Reports on the income support system, take-up of payments, and incomes and income adequacy for income support recipients
• Projects estimating the difference the reforms made
• Research on client experience.

For enquiries about this research please email research@msd.govt.nz