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Social Security Act 2018

Obligations - Beneficiaries’ obligations - Specific obligations: obligation to work with contracted service providers

170: Obligation to work with contracted service providers

You could also call this:

“You must work with MSD's hired helpers if you get certain benefits”

If you get jobseeker support, sole parent support, a supported living payment, or an emergency benefit, you need to work with service providers that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) hires. This applies whether you get the benefit for yourself or for your partner.

When MSD asks you to, you must:

  1. Go to and take part in interviews with the service provider MSD chooses.

  2. Go to and take part in any assessments done by the service provider MSD chooses.

  3. Help the service provider MSD chooses to give you services. These services are about your responsibilities under the benefit rules. This might include things like work preparation, looking after children, or meeting work test requirements.

  4. Tell the service provider MSD chooses about how you’re following the benefit rules. You need to do this as often as the provider asks and in the way they want you to.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6783454.

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169: Interpretation, or

“What certain words mean in this part of the law about young people, their partners, and benefits”

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171: Person who fails to comply with requirement under section 170(2) subject to sanction, or

“You might get in trouble if you don't do what MSD asks you to do”

Part 3 Obligations
Beneficiaries’ obligations: Specific obligations: obligation to work with contracted service providers

170Obligation to work with contracted service providers

  1. This section applies to a person (P) who receives 1 of the following benefits, whether in P’s own right or on behalf of P’s spouse or partner:

  2. jobseeker support:
    1. sole parent support:
      1. a supported living payment:
        1. an emergency benefit.

          1. P must, when required by MSD,—

          2. attend and participate in any interview with a contracted service provider specified by MSD:
            1. attend and participate in any assessment of P undertaken on behalf of MSD by a contracted service provider specified by MSD:
              1. co-operate with a contracted service provider specified by MSD in facilitating the provision of the services that the provider has been contracted to provide in relation to P’s obligations under all or any of the following:
                1. conditions of an emergency benefit that MSD imposes or determines under section 63(5):
                  1. work-preparation obligations (see sections 124 and 125):
                    1. obligations in relation to dependent children (see sections 131 to 135):
                      1. work-test obligations (see sections 144 and 146):
                      2. report to a contracted service provider specified by MSD on P's compliance with P's obligations under this Act as often as, and in the manner that, the provider reasonably requires.

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