Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Months’ worth of social housing and benefit data haven’t been published because of a broken system, and there’s no fix in sight.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) usually provides monthly updates, including information like the number of people in emergency and social housing, and how big the waitlist is, tracking changes over time.
Those have not been published since November, and the quarterly update due in December was also missing.
MSD has reported “high level” benefit data – the number of people on various benefits – as at December, but its usual monthly benefit reporting was affected too.
“The delay is related to our Information Analysis Platform, which is the tool we use to collate benefit and some housing data,” MSD insights general manager Fleur McLaren said.
She could not say when the information would be published.
“The system is ageing and requires manual fixes,” she said.
“Because of the age of the system, undertaking a fix has taken longer than we had first anticipated.”
McLaren apologised for the delay.
The problem did not affect the ministry’s internal data collection or reporting capability – that is, the data does exist – but it could not be publicised because that required additional checks, the ministry said.
MSD is in the midst of a 10-year, $2 billion overhaul of its 30-year-old IT systems that are so clunky they hold up benefits.
In 2024, it was reported that nearly one in four beneficiaries could be receiving the wrong level of support due in part to staff having to navigate multiple frontline IT systems.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
