Review of a decision

Kinds of decisions you can challenge

A few examples of decisions you can review are:

• declining you a payment
• stopping or cancelling your payment
• changing the amount of your payment
• the start date of your payment
• the amount of an overpayment or debt.

If you want to challenge a decision made on medical grounds, there are different rules and processes for this.

Review of a medical decision

How to apply

Before you start

First, call us to talk about the decision you're challenging and what you don't agree with. We may be able to fix it over the phone.

Apply for a review of decision

If we can't fix it over the phone, you (or your agent or advocate) can either:

• fill in a Review of Decision application form or
• write a letter to us with:
  • the date you heard about the decision
  • what the decision was about, and
  • why you disagree with it.

You don't have to use legal language.

You can hand in your form or letter to your nearest service centre, or post it to your service centre.

Find a service centre near you

What happens next

After you apply, we'll carry out an internal review. This is where we take another look at the original information you gave us for the decision. We'll see if we missed anything or made a mistake which means the decision should be different.

We may:

• call you if we have any questions or need more information
• contact other people to get more information if the decision involves them.

Outcome of internal review

We'll send you a letter within 2 weeks letting you know whether we've decided to change the decision or not.

• If we change it, we'll let you know what this will mean for you.
• If we don't change it, we'll send a report to the Benefits Review Committee. They'll take a fresh look at your case.

If we don't change the decision

The Benefits Review Committee will receive our report and contact you to set a date for a hearing.

The Benefits Review Committee is made up of:

• 2 Work and Income staff members who weren't involved in the internal review, and
• a community representative appointed by the Minister for Social Development.

The hearing

You can choose whether the hearing is held either:

• at the service centre you go to
• by video call (using Zoom), or
• by teleconference.

You can bring a support person, advocate or lawyer with you to the hearing if you want. You can also have a lawyer appear for you if you don't want to go yourself.

It's a formal process where a Work and Income representative presents their case, and then you (or your advocate or lawyer) respond. Committee members can ask questions. After the formal part, everyone except the Committee members leaves and the Committee makes its decision.

The outcome

The Benefits Review Committee will send you a report letting you know their decision. They'll send this to you about 10 working days after the hearing.

• If the Committee agrees with you and the decision needs to be changed, the service centre you've been dealing with will put things right.
• If you're not satisfied with the Committee's decision, you can appeal to the Social Security Appeal Authority. The authority is made up of people who work for the Ministry of Justice. The Committee's report will tell you how to lodge an appeal, or you can call 04 462 6660.

If you apply late for a review

Usually, you need to apply for a review of decision within 3 months of a decision being made. We can accept later applications if there's a good and sufficient reason for the delay.

The Benefits Review Committee will meet to consider your reasons for delay and may decide to go ahead with a hearing. If it doesn't think your reason is good enough, the original decision will stand.

Reasons for delay could include:

• you were unwell
• your health condition, disability or stress impacted you
• problems related to language (eg, not reading or understanding English)
• you didn't have access to the information you needed
• you didn't understand the decision and have now got advice from an advocate or lawyer
• waiting until a criminal prosecution related to this decision progressed.

You may have other reasons for the delay. It's important you tell us about them so we can consider it at the hearing.

Don't want to continue with your application

If you don't want to continue with your review of decision application, you can withdraw it at any time.

To do this, you can either:

• call us on 0800 559 009 and we'll put you in touch with the unit or person that's working on your application, or
• contact the Benefits Review Committee Co-ordinator as soon as possible. You can find their phone number on the letter we sent you about the hearing.