Social Development Minister Louise Upston admits it took "far too long" for officials to realise thousands of superannuitants and beneficiaries had wrongly lost their winter energy payments, despite warnings raised months earlier.
A Ministry of Social Development review released yesterday found more than 16,270 superannuitants and veterans had missed out on payments they were entitled to, alongside a separate backlog affecting thousands more beneficiaries.
It also reveals issues were raised as early as April but only seriously addressed in August.
Speaking a day after a Ministry of Social Development (MSD) review into the debacle was released, Upston told 1News she was glad to finally have answers on what went wrong.
"It was good to receive it, and for MSD to be clear about what went wrong with the operationalising of this policy," she said.
"It's pretty clear that it had a significant impact on New Zealanders who should have been able to rely on getting those payments. They didn't. That caused significant harm, for which I apologise."
MSD chief executive Debbie Power yesterday apologised to those affected.
"Some people did all the right things but still had their payments suspended," she said.
"We know that even a short suspension of payments could have caused a lot of anxiety and trouble meeting costs. We've identified those affected, restored entitlements, and paid arrears."
Four-month gap between first flag and fix
The review found an MSD a staff member first raised concerns about the payments on April 30, just days after the winter energy payment began for superannuitants that year, but MSD's senior leadership team was not told of the scale of the problem until August 13.
Upston said the four-month gap was unacceptable.
"It took far too long for MSD to put those issues together and realise that there was a more significant problem that needed to be fixed."
She confirmed an email flagging concerns had been copied to her office during that period.
"Normally the processes when an email is copied to the minister's office from an MP, that should have raised more of a concern," she said. "I accept it's not good enough that this took several months for the dots to be joined together."
Opposition say Upston's position 'untenable'
A Social Development Ministry review has found the extent of the bungle affected many more than earlier reported. (Source: 1News)
Labour's Willow-Jean Prime and the Green Party's Ricardo Menéndez March have both called for further accountability, with Prime described the review as "damning" and Menéndez March saying Upston's position was untenable.
Upston rejected suggestions the Government's use of urgency to pass the underlying law last year was to blame for the failures.
"The issue occurred actually well before that, in the policy development process," she said.
"You know, the challenge was the winter energy payment should have been considered. It wasn't."
She said the review gave MSD a clear set of fixes to work through.
"The report yesterday really explains what went wrong, and that's why there's recommendations that have come out of it. I expect MSD to act on all of those recommendations, and in future to do better."
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