What, if anything, was the cause of the Ministry of Social Development systems issues that have prevented publication of key statistics for December 2025 and January 2026?

Answer

The issue related to the Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD’s) Information Analysis Platform (IAP) the tool MSD analysts use to collate New Zealand benefit and some housing data. The IAP is an ageing system, and while MSD is in the process of developing a new platform, it requires some manual fixes to be done. In late December there was a manual data fix put into the Individual Person View area of the IAP. Unfortunately, this manual fix was incorrect and meant that some data for December and January was incorrect. The error did not affect the overall benefit data, but it did affect some subsets of data within the IAP, such as ethnicity and sanctions data. This delayed the December and January data. As a result the underlying data for December and January had to be restored and rechecked which has taken time to ensure the accuracy of the data. The December Benefit report has now been published, as have the February, and March benefit and housing reports.