It has apologised to a partly paralysed Christchurch man who received a letter from Winz demanding the return of money he did not get during a jail term he did not serve.

The letter, sent from the National Data Match Centre in Wellington, said Winz and Department of Corrections records showed Mike Taylor had received an overpayment of $27.90 while he was in Christchurch Prison.

Mr Taylor, who has been on an invalid's benefit since suffering a brain haemorrhage in 1994, has never been in prison.

Winz spokeswoman Nikki Douglas said yesterday that the department could not comment on Mr Taylor's case without his permission.

However, she said that in the last fiscal year the department's data-matching programme had identified about 210,000 matches with data held by the Department of Corrections, NZ Customs Service, and Inland Revenue.

"Mistakes are very rare. Quality assurance processes are in place to monitor the accuracy of matches and follow-up processes," Ms Douglas said.

"If mistakes occur they are usually picked up very quickly, resolved, and any records referring to the incorrect match are destroyed."

Ms Douglas said any mistakes were "deeply regrettable" and the department had apologised to Mr Taylor for the mistake.

Mr Taylor said yesterday that while he had received a verbal apology from Winz, he would not be happy until he received one in writing.

His MP, Lianne Dalziel, had contacted him after reading about his case in The Press and had promised to raise the issue in Parliament once the House convened for the year.

"What Winz have done isn't good enough – they put me through hell and they should have to apologise in writing," Mr Taylor said.

Asked what steps Winz took to verify information supplied by the matching centre, Ms Douglas said initial data matches were manually checked and then a letter sent to the client concerned.

"In the case of a match with the Department of Corrections, the letter would advise that the department's records show the person is in prison and the Department of Work and Income would like to check if this information is correct.

"The letter asks the client to get in touch with the department straight away if they think the information is incorrect."

Ms Douglas said that if, at that stage, it came to light that the information the department held was incorrect, the matter was not pursued and the information about it was destroyed.

"If the department does not hear from the client, other attempts are made to verify the information," Ms Douglas said.

"The department has a responsibility to ensure the information it has is correct and makes every attempt to do so before acting further on that information."

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2001

Answers

Winz has had trouble with their database
ever since they upgraded their software
to become Y2K compliant.

TB 2000 archives

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2001