Prisoners wrongly sent ACC payments

Taxpayers footed a $70,000 bill after scores of prison inmates were wrongly paid ACC, it has been revealed.

Figures released to the Press newspaper by ACC showed 137 prison inmates were paid money to which they were not entitled.

Under the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act, prisoners were not eligible for ACC entitlements, other than medical treatment and physical rehabilitation.

ACC runs weekly a data-matching programme with Corrections to pick up payments that may be going to new prisoners.

ACC spokesman Laurie Edwards said by the time names were matched and verified, and payments were stopped, most inmates had been in prison for a week.

"It does not usually take much longer. However, a week or so of compensation will have been overpaid and this has to be recovered. They were not 'wrongly paid' as such, it just takes the system a week or so to confirm the details and stop the payments."

However the incidents of payments to prisoners were on the decrease as in the past year the number of cases being detected increased from 56 to 81 and the average amount owed dropped by $200, Mr Edwards said.

National Party ACC spokesman Dr Paul Hutchison said it was "outrageous" the welfare system let payments to prisoners slip through.

"ACC should be doing everything in the book to recover it but should also have a system in place to ensure these payments are cancelled immediately on imprisonment," he told the Press.

- NZPA