Low trust clients prove to be trustworthy

  • Jo Goodhew
Social Development

Associate Social Development Minister Jo Goodhew has welcomed the continuing success of the government’s welfare fraud initiatives.

“One of the key initiatives is close monitoring of low-trust clients who have previously committed welfare fraud,” says Mrs Goodhew.

“Prior to our welfare reforms, approximately 26 percent of clients re-offended.

However the latest report shows that none of the 1,698 clients who have left the close monitoring initiative so far have recommitted welfare fraud.

“These results are a testament to our case managers who are actively working with our clients to prevent welfare fraud.”

A total of 1,653 clients remain in the programme and are being monitored because of historic benefit overpayment or due to welfare fraud prosecutions.

“Additionally, as a result of our initiatives a further 536 benefits have been cancelled since December 2014,” says Mrs Goodhew.

“Increased information sharing between the Ministry of Social Development and Inland Revenue has saved $3.2 million since December last year and recovered $1.21 million in overpayments.

“Not only are these initiatives smarter about discovering debt, they are also better at holding accountable the liable parties.

“Relationship fraud comprises a large proportion of welfare fraud each year, but our reforms have meant spouses and partners of beneficiaries are equally held to account.”

When relationship fraud is detected both people in the relationship are liable to repay the debt. This is called ‘debt sharing’, and was put in place as part of the Social Security Amendment Bill in July 2014.

“In the last quarter there have been 31 cases of relationship fraud established, totalling $240,000 in debt,” says Mrs Goodhew.

“Our welfare reform initiatives are delivering significant savings for the taxpayer, and they are producing real results for our clients - around 16,000 people continue to move off welfare and into independence each week.

“To March 2015, these initiatives have resulted in $63.63 million in prospective savings, and $7.43 million in recovered overpayments.”

The welfare fraud initiatives have led to the cancelling of just under 10,000 benefits to March 2015, and are estimated to save between $165.3 million and $173.3 million of taxpayer money.