Battling WINZ for benefits

Sarah Wilson didn't expect a strong reaction when she hit publish on a blog post “Terror and humiliation – just another day with WINZ”. But what followed was nearly 200 comments, media attention, and political activism.

Why did her story resonate? About 295,000 people receive a main benefit in New Zealand. Once other payments are included, according to Work and Income New Zealand, that works out to about two million applications, 1.5 million meetings and 13 million phone calls each year. And many of those people have a story about a condescending case manager, a lost form, or tangle of red tape.

Sarah, a 27-year-old communications professional had been receiving a benefit for about a year after developing serious gut and immunity problems. “This was between January and February last year,” she says. “I was trying to work. I was trying to stay on top of things but I was just vomiting constantly and it was just absolutely horrendous.”

Her first encounter with WINZ took place in hospital in early 2013. A social worker assigned by the hospital handed her a stack of forms to fill out. “They're just completely intimidating,” she says. “For me, being as sick as I was, I thought, I'm never going to be able to do this – I'm not going to be able to get through all these forms.”

She eventually got it sorted and received Jobseeker Support (which replaced the old sickness and unemployment benefits in July 2013) and a separate disability allowance to cover medical costs.

In February 2014 her benefit and allowance came up for review and she was asked to provide proof she still needed payments. This is where the blog post picks up. After “considerable effort”, she writes, she dropped in her documents – only to turn up at WINZ Nelson, after trying to get an update on her application, to find no record of the evidence she'd provided.

As she sat, crying with frustration, the staff member with her started clapping for another client, as part of a practice at some offices to applaud or sound hooters when clients find work.

“The interview ended with him saying blankly ‘I can’t help you’. Ring the call centre and make an appointment' and me walking out in tears.”

She‘s since received an apology but the response to her blog post suggests a wider problem. Within two weeks, it had picked up almost 30,000 page views. The Nelson Mail published three articles and a sympathetic editorial. After over 100 comments, Sarah started collecting a list of other people's experiences to pass to local Labour MP Maryan Street. Labour's social development spokesperson Sue Moroney has since announced the party's own online “fair treatment” survey to gather beneficiaries' feedback.

The relationship between WINZ and its clients is a sensitive one. Few people enjoy dealing with bureaucracy but a bad experience matters more when what's at stake are basic needs and personal information.

Auckland Action Against Poverty co-ordinator Nadia Abu-Shanab, 24, argues there are systemic problems with the way people are treated at WINZ. She's new on the job as a beneficiary advocate and says she's shocked by some of what she's seen.

“I don't think I would have believed if people had told me, before I worked for AAAP, the actual extent to how people are treated at WINZ,” she says.

“We have a misconception around how easy it is to access benefits and entitlements. In two-and-a-half months, my whole understanding of it, even as someone who was initially sympathetic, has flipped on its head seeing what people have gone through.”

What's shocked her the most is the way people are made to feel. “The minute anyone walks in the door at WINZ, they are being blamed and judged as having done something wrong to get themselves into that situation.”

She says it shouldn't be made so difficult for people to get what they're entitled to by law. “Just an example. You go in, you take in your bank statement which you've been told to get and you've also had it date stamped and they go ‘oh, you haven't got a signature from the bank teller’. What does that signature actually mean? For me, it's obvious it's just yet another hoop for a beneficiary to jump through to make it harder to access their entitlement and to make people actually not want to do it.”

(A spokesperson for WINZ confirmed that a stamp and initials are sometimes required but only if the document provided by the client doesn't have a bank logo, full bank account number and account name.)

Of course, not everyone has a bad experience at WINZ. When The Wireless asked readers for their thoughts, both good and bad stories came back. The question is whether any level of poor treatment is acceptable, who it's affecting and what can be done to fix it.

The WINZ National Commissioner Carl Crafar – who's spent time on the frontline himself – has overall responsibility for service delivery. He's clear on what he expects from staff.

“The key thing, from my perspective, is that we always do our best to provide a really strong service, a personable service and a service that treats clients with respect and a high level of integrity,” he says.

“What I expect from my staff is that they treat people the way they'd want to be treated themselves. The reality is we won't get that right all of the time. We all make mistakes sometimes and we make some adjustments to our processes if that occurs.”

In Wilson's case, he says, mistakes were acknowledged in public and to Wilson directly. He says the service centre in Nelson also receives good feedback – more compliments than complaints. “I'm not into big journalist statements saying we get this wrong all the time because we don't.”

According to WINZ's monthly survey of 1600 clients, he says, in general people are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with service – the biggest and most common complaints tend to be around waiting times and ability to get an appointment.

In any case, there's a limit to what WINZ itself can address. It can make changes to service and processes but is charged with carrying out whatever policy – and budget – is set by the government of the day.

Right now, New Zealand is going through its most significant welfare reforms in half a century. It started in August 2012 with a new “wrap-around” service to support 16- to 18-year-olds receiving benefits, including teen parents. Then came new work obligations for solo parents with children aged over five. In July 2013, nine benefit types were collapsed into just three: Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support and Supported Living. Parents who don't take all reasonable steps to make sure their kids are in school and getting regular health check-ups now have their benefits docked.

The structure on the other side of the desk has changed too. Staff are now split into groups to manage different levels of work obligations. If clients are required to look for full-time work, it'll be a caseload of one-to-121. For part-time work, it'll be one-to-217. For case managers in a new pilot programme to help people with health issues into work, it's a ratio of about one-to-100.

While those numbers seem large, Crafar says about 300 new staff have been hired since the reforms and the one-to-121 ratio is “about right” compared to comparable social organisations. Back in 2007, he says, a case manager would just deal with as many clients as they could.

The Government's headline goal is to reduce the number of long-term welfare beneficiaries (defined as people receiving Jobseeker Support for more than a year) by 30 per cent, from 78,000 in April 2012 to 55,000 by June 2017.

While the recovering economy is probably doing most of the heavy lifting, the reforms appear to be working. Fewer people are claiming benefits than at any point since March 2009.

Benefit numbers dropped by nearly 15,000 people in the year to March 2014. According to WINZ, about 40 per cent moved into work. Others moved to study, started or resumed relationships that disqualified them from Sole Parent Support, or moved overseas. Some people went back to work after illness.

“The big success is the 10 per cent drop in sole parents and their children coming off Sole Parent Support,” Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said in a press statement in April.

“More than 8,600 sole parents have come off Sole Parent Support in the past 12 months, making up almost 60 per cent of the total reduction.”

She also singled out a 13 per cent decrease in Young Parent Payments. “We know that going on a benefit as teenager with children puts that person and their kids at huge risk of becoming trapped in welfare dependency,” she said.

“The reductions we’re now seeing will mean fewer people on benefit in the years to come. We have more young people getting education and training through our Youth Service support which means we’re going to see healthier, more prosperous households.”

Labour's Maryan Street says the party isn't convinced the Government's targets for reducing benefit numbers are appropriate. Pushing people into work before they're ready, she says, may mean they end up being “more of a burden on the public purse than they would have been otherwise”.

Sarah Wilson, for her part, says it's ridiculous for the unemployed and the unwell to be lumped together under Jobseeker Support. She wants to go back to her old job, she says – she's just too unwell to do it. “Sending someone who's got a chronic illness to CV workshops, how is that supposed to help?”

Some changes here are expected. After a promising trial, WINZ is expanding an intensive case management scheme to help people with health and disability issues, including mental health, into employment.

Among other things, this will mean those on Jobseeker Support for health reasons will only see one case manager. They'll complete a self-assessment form for how they see themselves and what they want to achieve and work with their manager to find employment options that could fit.

“It's about making sure wherever you put them doesn't exacerbate the situation,” the Ministry of Social Development's Director of Welfare Reform Sandra Kirikiri told Radio New Zealand in April. She added that staff make work placements for this group of clients carefully.

“Long-term employment is what's going to help, even if it's part-time,” she says. “We don't want to push people into a job that in two weeks' time is going to fall over for them.”

What's been the same is that there are good case managers and bad case managers,” she says. “There are people that are really trying to help you. And sometimes you strike someone who just isn't interested and just seems punitive and angry and like it's their money.

According to a plan published on the MSD website, all staff at WINZ will be given further training in health and disability needs. A mentoring system will also be set up for staff working directly with clients in this group.

Wilson says while the one-on-one case management sounds like a good idea, she's concerned it still misses the point. “You're working side-by-side with someone whose goal isn't the same as yours. Your goal is to get well. Getting well might eventually result in going back to work. Their goal is to get you off the benefit as quickly as possible.”

Another concern, according to experienced beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton, is what message is sent by the new tougher work obligations.

Brereton joined the Wellington People Centre as an advocate in 2006 and now contracts to the Southland Beneficiary Rights Centre.

“What's been the same is that there are good case managers and bad case managers,” she says. “There are people that are really trying to help you. And sometimes you strike someone who just isn't interested and just seems punitive and angry and like it's their money.”

What's changed since the reforms, she says, is that the latter group has more power – perceived and real – to sanction clients. “There are so many more ways to trip up and go wrong.”

She can understand the reasons behind the reforms but says there's too much emphasis on punishment. Different people take on messages in different ways, she says, and “tough on welfare” is all some staff have heard. “Get these people into jobs and reduce long-term welfare liability.”

She'd like to see more incentives, fewer sanctions and more support for staff at WINZ. “People go into that job generally for the right reasons, I think,” she says. “It wears you down. They have really big caseloads. They do find things change very fast.”

Bennett is quick to defend her ministry's frontline staff. “I'm really proud of them," she told the Nelson Mail. "I stand not just beside them, I stand in front of them and I'm happy to take any flak for the policies, but I think the work that they're doing is outstanding."

She said she didn't see the need for any changes in response to Wilson and her supporters, saying “we work with some people that are at the most challenging and distressing times in their lives and their perception of how they're dealt with can sometimes be not perhaps the reality if they were in a different frame of mind.”

It's too early for the results of the reforms to be clear – or for Labour's attempt to collect feedback from beneficiaries to come together. It's fair to say, though, that the current adversarial relationship is in nobody's best interests.

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