KEY POINTS:
A total of $380,000 was paid to dead beneficiaries over a 10-month period last year, figures released today show.
Benefit payments are supposed to cease the day after a person dies, or four weeks later in circumstances where an abrupt halt would cause hardship for dependants.
Despite a new data-sharing initiative between the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Social Development, the 2006 figure marks a 17 per cent increase on the total overpayments for 2005.
The figures were included in information obtained by the Dominion Post newspaper.
National MP Judith Collins said Work and Income New Zealand had previously given a concrete assurance that the data-sharing programme would prevent such overpayments.
Ms Collins said: "For those who are left behind, receiving a letter in the post from the department demanding repayment is very distressing."
A spokesperson for the Ministry told the Dominion Post that although the data-sharing programme had brought the number of overpayments down, it had become clear it would not be possible to completely eliminate them.
The rise in overpayments for 2006 was due to more deaths, benefit increases, and a longer average period of overpayment, the spokesperson said.
In the four years before the scheme was introduced, $7.8 million was paid out to nearly 6000 dead beneficiaries.
- NZPA
