"The Families Commission therefore decided not to publish the report and will not be using the report in any way now or in the future," he said.
In a peer review of the 120-page report, Auckland University's Professor Maureen Baker said it was a "very well written study that provides important verbatim comments from beneficiaries, insightful academic and policy findings and useful recommendations for the New Zealand Government".
Prof Baker said that in her opinion, "no major changes" were needed.
"In fact, the report is so carefully written that there are very few words that need to be altered."
Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson said she had not seen the research but had been advised it recorded the views of 15 domestic purposes beneficiaries "dissatisfied" with the service provided by Work and Income.
"The sample is tiny and it cannot be assumed that it communicates the views of all domestic purposes benefit recipients. It is biased with participants self-selecting and the researchers providing advocacy to the same people," she said.
The Rotorua Peoples' Advocacy Centre was helped in publishing the report by the National Distribution Union (NDU), Child Poverty Action and the Northern Drivers' Charitable Trust.
NDU national secretary Laila Harre said the union had contributed several hundred dollars towards the publication as had other organisations.
"We'll be invoicing the Families Commission for that. It was their obligation to publish and we see it really as having underwritten the publication and we'll be expecting our money back."
If the NDU had not helped with the publication costs, the report would not have seen the light of day, Ms Harre said.
"We felt pretty angry, along with other organisations, that information from people dealing with the State, in this case DPB recipients, was being suppressed."
The Families Commission had undertaken to publish the results of the research and had "failed to honour that".
She felt its publication had been stopped because of the actions of a "paranoid" minister, trying to deflect criticism of his department.
While the report raised a number of issues it also suggested there had been a significant improvement in the way DPB recipients were dealt with by Work and Income when their personal development and employment plans were developed, she said.
The research found participants experienced a work-life imbalance as sole parents, mainly because of lack of support and inadequate income.
It said the stigma attached to sole parent families getting a DPB benefit needed to be significantly reduced, there needed to be a "cultural shift" among Work and Income employees to eliminate negative stereotyping, and that beneficiaries' work in parenting and voluntary and community work needed to be formally recognised.
Ms Bradford listed key findings in the report as:
* Work was needed to end the "culture of negative stereotyping" within the Department of Work and Income when it was dealing with sole parents on the domestic purposes benefit.
* More support was needed for sole parents to go into part-time rather than fulltime work so they could better meet the needs of their families.
* Changes should be made to the Personal Development and Employment Plan system to improve its efficiency.
* Work involved in parenting, as well as voluntary and community work, needed to be formally recognised.
- NZPA
