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Dear ACC... you are in breach of your own legislation
Dear ACC - you are in breach of your own legislation by taking up to 10 weeks (or longer) to sort out weekly compensation once a claim has been accepted.
Oh wait, hang on, the Minister will change the legislation… ahh ok, silly me.
Specifically, I draw your attention to “Bringing forward eligibility for the minimum rate will remove a financial hardship earlier in the recovery process, allowing people on low incomes to better focus on their rehabilitation," Sepuloni said.”
Where to begin.
By way of context, it is currently taking ACC up to 10 weeks or more to determine weekly compensation once a claim has been accepted. 10 weeks not just for people on low incomes, but all New Zealand eople.
How can a Minister be so out of touch with such a critical organisation?
The problems ACC is having is hardly a surprise. Under orders, the organisation has been on a campaign for the last 4 years to reduce costs by automating, putting everything online, and making large swathes of very talented people redundant. In reality, ACC’s drive to cut costs isn’t actually working so well as evidenced by the organisation taking a minimum of 10 weeks to do something that is actually our legal right to have done quicker. Staff are under the pump; work queues are getting longer and wait times are getting longer – has the Minister actually called the 0800 number recently to get a real experience of the wait times?
Back to the article. First and foremost, I take offense that the Minister is playing the low-income card.
There is no difference between low, medium, or high-income earners when it comes to entitlement. There should also be no difference to race or sex. ACC is not meant to discriminate in any way shape or form, yet the Minister is implying it should.
When someone is incapacitated, the financial pain is the same regardless at what level. A large swathe of New Zealander’s cannot afford to live on 80% of their income.
Secondly, Minister Sepuloni does not seem to not understand the legislation. There is already provision in the Act for ACC to apply discretion under Schedule 1 – Entitlements. Her logic does not quite stack up.
Perhaps we are dealing with smokes and mirrors.
Is this a way where the ACC doesn’t fall foul of the legislation that governs it with respect to taking 10 weeks or more to process weekly compensation?
For instance, Sec 114 requires ACC to pay interest on weekly compensation when ACC has not paid it within 1 month from receiving all the information it needs to. For the record, ACC has direct access to your tax information with Inland Revenue. Unless you happen to be self-employed, there is no way ACC can use this as an excuse.
Another example is the CoverPlus Extra terms (4.1) states that your weekly compensation payments will start seven days after your incapacity so long your claim is covered. Seven days not 10 weeks!
Oh, in case you think ACC hasn’t got the scope to process the claim in a timely manner in the first place, please remember ACC introduced auto-acceptance of claims as part of their next generation claim management. Well over 90% of claims are automatically accepted meaning that the bottle neck sits solely at a human resource level.
We have placed an Official Information Act request as to how many claimants are impacted by waiting longer than 7 days for compensation once the claim has been accepted. We have also asked for a breakdown of the time periods; the average amount of time; the mean number; what interest is payable; and a range of other requests.
To be honest, I personally do not anticipate getting much back at all but am very happy to be proven wrong.
Why are we being vocal?
Good rehab is a mutual goal for all as driven by ACC. Not having an income is a very large psychosocial barrier so ACC is directly challenging effective rehabilitation.
As an employer you pay for this. You are down a worker, and you pay penalties on your levies. Great, ACC can stuff things up and penalise you the employer.
Perhaps more importantly, we are dealing with real people with real claims. This is a legislative right not a nice to have.
Lastly, ACC is being tasked with managing the Income Insurance Scheme next year. This scares me. A lot. It cannot even manage its legal obligations as it stands. How is it going to deal with a whole additional insurance scheme?
