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HNZ/MSD Benefit Eligibility Programme

• Annual Report
• Technical information
• System description
• Historical activity


Annual Report

Purpose: To enable MSD detect:

• ‘double-dipping' for accommodation assistance;
• differences in information concerning personal relationships, dependent children and tenant income; and
• forwarding address details for MSD debtors who have left HNZ properties.

Year commenced: 2006

Features: Data transferred each week by online transfer.

HNZ disclosure to MSD: HNZ selects records relating to new tenancies, annual rent reviews, change in circumstance rent reviews and tenancy vacations. Each record includes the tenant's full name (including aliases), date of birth, MSD client number (if held), income (including income from any borders), relationship details (to other tenants) and details of any dependants. Also included are details about the property location, tenancy start/end dates, weekly rental charges and any forwarding address details provided on termination of the tenancy.

2008/09 activity:

New match runs started in the reporting period

Match runs 53
Records received for matching                  94,649      
Possible matches identified                       7,185
All match runs active in the reporting period
Matches that required no further action      6,986
Notices of adverse action 139
Challenges 0
Overpayments established (number) 84
Overpayments established (dollars) $71,281     

Fewer possible matches were identified during the 2008/09 year compared with the previous year because of the improved filtering process initiated during 2007/08. The programme continues to identify only a small fraction of the forecasted[1] $1.4 million in annual overpayments.

Compliance: Compliant.

Technical information

Information matching provision Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992, s.68
Year authorised 2006
Programme type Confirming eligibility
Detecting illegal behaviour
Locating people
Updating data
Unique identifiers MSD client number
On-line Transfers Yes

System description

Each week, Housing New Zealand (HNZ) transfers to MSD a subset of all newly updated records from its tenancy database (known as Rentel) by online transfer using the New Zealand Government Secure Electronic Environment Mail (SEEMail) system. HNZ select records based on the following criteria:

• all new HNZ tenancies;
• annual rent review records;
• change in circumstance rent review records; and
• tenant vacations.

Each record includes the tenant full name (including aliases), date of birth, income (including border income), relationship details (to other tenants), and details of any dependants. Also included are details about the property location, tenancy start / end dates, weekly rental charges, and any forwarding address details provided upon termination of the tenancy.

MSD compares the HNZ information with current client data extracted from their beneficiary and student databases. The matching algorithm used by MSD produces positive matches that are assigned a match level indicator to indicate descending probability that an MSD client is the person on the Rentel database. All positive matches are transferred from MSD's data warehouse into AIMOS, their special data matching application. MSD staff manually check the validity of the match results before sending a s.103 notice of adverse action.

Historical activity

                                                  2006/07 2007/08
New match runs started in the reporting period
Match runs 40 52
Records compared 66,979 91,315
Number of client cases                    42,168     28,675   
All match runs active in the reporting period
Legitimate cases 40,436 29,921
Notices of adverse action 94 115
Overpayments established (number)   2 50
Overpayments established $2,146    $90,566  
Challenges 0 0
Challenges successful 0 0

[1] Information Matching Privacy Impact Assessment 2005, prepared by MSD.