Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Residential Care and Disability Support Services Act 2018

Schedule 3: Means assessment for home-based disability support services

You could also call this:

"Working out what you can afford to pay for home-based disability support"

Illustration for Residential Care and Disability Support Services Act 2018

When you get home-based disability support services, the government needs to work out how much you can afford to pay. They do this by looking at your income and your expenses. Your expenses include things like the cost of your accommodation, phone rental, medical expenses, and other essential costs. You can find out more about what is included in your accommodation costs by looking at section 65 of the Social Security Act 2018, which is used for subpart 10 of Part 2 and Part 7 of Schedule 4 of that Act. The government will subtract your expenses from your income to work out how much you can afford to pay.

The government will use this calculation to decide how much you need to pay for your home-based disability support services. If you can afford to pay nothing, you will not have to pay anything. If you can afford to pay a little, you will pay that amount. If you can afford to pay the full cost of the services, you will pay the full cost.

The government will convert the amount you need to pay into a weekly amount. This is how much you will pay each week for your home-based disability support services. The calculation is done according to clause 2, and the result is used to work out your payment. You can read more about this in clauses 3 to 5 and clause 2.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS41730.

Topics:
Health and wellbeing > Healthcare servicesMoney and consumer rights > Consumer protection
Previous

Schedule 2: Means assessment for long-term residential care, or

"How your money and assets are assessed when you need long-term care"

3Means assessment for home-based disability support services Empowered by ss 60, 61

1Specified outgoings defined

In this schedule, specified outgoings, in relation to a person, means the annual total of—

  • the maximum rate for the time being of a supported living payment that would be payable to the person if the person was qualified to receive a benefit of that kind:
    1. an amount of $10 per week (for the purpose of paying costs incidental to the provision of home help):
      1. the following employment-related expenses of the person and the person’s spouse or partner, calculated on an annual basis:
        1. fees or subscriptions payable on an annual or regular basis to any union:
          1. contributions to any superannuation scheme:
            1. contributions to any employee welfare fund:
              1. any other essential costs of that employment (not including travel to and from work) to the extent that they are not reimbursed by the employer:
              2. the person's accommodation costs (as defined in section 65 of the Social Security Act 2018 for the purposes of subpart 10 of Part 2 and Part 7 of Schedule 4 of that Act (accommodation supplement)):
                1. the person's telephone rental (being the standard line charge and base user charge including hire of a basic telephone applicable to a person living in the place where the person lives), calculated on an annual basis:
                  1. the cost of the person's ongoing and regular medical and pharmaceutical expenses, calculated on an annual basis:
                    1. the cost of the person's regular essential expenses (being expenses other than the cost of food, clothing, travel, running a motor vehicle, life insurance, house and contents insurance, hire purchase, entertainment, and personal savings), calculated on an annual basis.

                          1. 2Calculation

                          MSD must calculate the amount of the person's annual income and specified outgoings, and must deduct the amount of the specified outgoings from the annual income.

                            3If result is $0 or less than $0

                            If the result of the calculation specified in clause 2 is $0 or less than $0, MSD must assess the amount the person is required to contribute towards the cost of the home-based disability support services supplied to that person as $0.

                              4If result is greater than $0 but less than total cost of services supplied

                              If the result of the calculation specified in clause 2 is greater than $0 but less than the total cost of the home-based disability support services supplied to the person, MSD must assess that result as the amount the person is required to contribute towards the cost of those services.

                                5If result is equal to or greater than total cost of services supplied

                                If the result of the calculation specified in clause 2 is equal to or greater than the total cost of the home-based disability support services supplied to the person, MSD must assess the amount the person is required to contribute towards the cost of those services as the total cost of those services.

                                  6Conversion to weekly amount

                                  MSD must convert an assessment made under clauses 3 to 5 to a weekly amount.