The Social Security Act 2018 and the Public and Community Housing Management Act 1992 have far reaching powers for gathering information, which are important for the effective administration of those Acts. These powers extend to MSD issuing notices requiring people to produce information and documentation, and largely govern the collection of information for the purpose of recovering overpayments and investigating allegations of fraud.
To ensure the Ministry is appropriately using these powers, Code(s) of Conduct are issued to govern their use in practise. The Code(s) provide safeguards to protect an individual’s right to privacy and ensure fair procedures are followed by MSD.
The Code(s) of Conduct are like a Privacy Code of Practice and any person who has received or is a subject of a notice can complain to the Privacy Commissioner about a breach of the Code.
MSD takes benefit and housing fraud seriously. You can find out more about our fraud investigations on the Work and Income website.
While we have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the welfare system, we are committed to treating clients fairly and ethically. Our Ethics Framework applies to staff who play a role in investigation activities.
Please contact us for an alternate copy if you are unable to download these PDF documents.
MSD aims be a trusted and proactive organisation. We connect clients to all the support and services that are right for them, and improve the social and economic wellbeing of New Zealanders.
The use of automated decision-making helps us to deliver efficient services to the New Zealand public. For example, Work and Income use automated decision making for child support payments.
We have developed an Automated Decision-Making (ADM) Standard to govern the development of any process that uses automated rules-based decision-making.
The ADM Standard was developed to ensure that when we implement an automated decision-making process:
