A voluntary manual system has been developed between the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Social Development to provide prisoners with a opportunity to authorise Work and Income to stop their benefit, Student Allowance, Student Loan or other payments from Work and Income and/or StudyLink; and,
The Department of Corrections also undertakes information matching with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD); this includes Work and Income which is a service of MSD. Information matching involves comparing information held by Corrections about prisoners with information held by the above agencies. In the case of information matching with MSD, the purpose is to detect prisoners receiving income support payments from MSD while in prison.
There are two processes in which information is provided to Work and Income to stop a benefit. They are:
The following process will apply as part of the New Arrival Induction Interview:
Receiving Officers/Induction Officers must provide prisoners with the Prisoner Authorisation to Disclose Information form.
If the prisoner agrees to and completes the Prisoner Authorisation to disclose information form, the prison must forward the completed form by fax to 0508 33 11 34 or (09) 920 2675. Or alternatively, the forms can be given directly to the Work and Income staff at the prison site.
Information relating to all prisoners on muster, maintained by Corrections (Sections 180 - 180B of the Corrections Act 2004) will be extracted daily from the Corrections data warehouse (CARS) to the MSD.
MSD is provided this information to identify potential student allowance fraud by prisoners and to assist in locating debtors.
Individuals who match MSD information may have their benefits stopped immediately and MSD will write explaining what has happened and request the individuals to contact them within 9 working days if they believe this information is incorrect.