Coronavirus: Fears beneficiaries will go hungry waiting for Work and Income

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Beneficiaries could go hungry because they can't get through to Work and Income phone lines, an advocate says.

People calling to request food grants and one-off emergency payments were waiting for 'hours' on the phone, Ricardo Menéndez March, co-ordinator for Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) said.

Long wait times weren't uncommon, he said, but this week callers had struggled to get through at all.

For some, that would mean not being able to put food on the table, he said.

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With face-to-face appointments cancelled, Work and Income phone lines are overloaded.

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It could also mean newly unemployed people trying to get on a benefit were left without any form of income, he said.

Menéndez March said he had heard accounts of people being cut off when Work and Income offices closed for the day, or of having to hang up after waiting for two hours.

Ricardo Menendez March says he's heard of people waiting for hours on the phone to Work and Income.

Chloe Ann-King experienced that when she tried to apply for a food grant on Thursday after losing hours at her hospitality job.

The writer and workers' rights advocate said she would normally expect to hear back in 10 minutes, but two days later she still hadn't had the grant approved.

She said in the days leading up to the lockdown, the online service MyMSD was down and the call centre was impossible to access.

Work and Income stopped face-to-face appointments from Monday night, instead providing all services online and over the phone.

As a short-term solution, Menéndez March said he wanted to see the limit on food grant allowances scrapped.

Currently, beneficiaries have to prove 'exceptional costs' if they need a food grant above their allowance. The allowance varies, from $200 over six months for a single person to $550 for families with more than three children.

Getting rid of the limit would make beneficiaries lives easier and also free up phone lines for more complex cases, he said.

He also called on the Government to raise benefit levels to a point where people were not reliant on emergency grants.

He said he was worried that if there was a community outbreak of Covid-19 at a Ministry of Social Development (MSD) call centre, 'the whole system would collapse'.

MSD was not able to immediately provide data on how wait times this week compared to normal.

George van Ooyen, manager of client service delivery, said the Ministry knew more people would be relying on it in the weeks ahead.

'We are working through a number of steps to respond to the high demand for our services, and the reduction in our workforce due to the requirement that some workers stay home due to pre-existing medical conditions or being over 70.'

He said there were plans to recruit more staff and redeploy existing staff to the frontline, and processes were being changed to reprioritise work.