Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations, and State Enterprises — Accident Compensation Corporation

It is a pleasure to take a call on this. Can I firstly commend the Minister for ACC, who shows an immense amount of robust leadership not only in this portfolio but across—

💬 Andrew Little: Why has she left the levies artificially high?

I thought that might get the members on the other side excited. I thought they had fallen asleep for a minute there.

In all seriousness, of course, the ACC is a very, very important part of the New Zealand fabric and provides assistance to many New Zealanders, and there has been some significant work going on in this department in the last 12 months. There were 1.7 million claims per annum, and 97 percent of those claims were accepted. There was $20.4 billion invested. There were 49,000 client interactions each day, $7 million a day paid out on average, and 925,000 general practitioner visits. There was weekly compensation for some 53,500 people, and over 80 million documents are held on file. It is a considerable department. Of course, one of the very important focuses of the ACC is managing people back into the workplace, because, as we all know—certainly not only from this particular portfolio—work is something that provides health, both mental and physical, in many ways. The agenda of the ACC is rehabilitation performance, trust and confidence, injury prevention, and financial performance.

If we look across the past 12 months, we see the 70-day rehabilitation rate has remained steady at about 70.6 percent, despite some more complex claims and an ageing population leading to longer rehab durations. Fewer claims went on to weekly compensation, and there was a greater use of abated compensation. The 273-day rate was also steady at 93.9 percent, the highest recorded level, and this contributed to helping longer-term clients back into work. A strong focus on management of all claims, but particularly more complex claims, substantially reduced growth in the long-term claims.

The effectiveness of rehabilitation, ultimately, is where the rubber hits the road. There will always be those who will spend a long time, perhaps a lifetime, on ACC—my family knows that only too well—but, for the most part, many will be effectively rehabilitated back into work, back into a full and healthy life. The ACC is exceeding most targets in this area, with more serious-injury clients achieving their goals. The overall quality of treatment is improving. There is good management of health care costs.

Client satisfaction is, however, slightly behind target. I think it points to the fact that there has been a change of focus that we do not want to see. Certainly this Government does not want to see people languishing on ACC, and so by putting the support around them and by moving the boundaries—massaging the continuum at the edges, if you like—there will always be an element of discontent. Having said that, of course, the aim is very much about returning people to work in a fit and healthy condition.

Going on, for the early resolution of disputes there is good progress being made here: 79 percent of reviews were withdrawn, settled, or decided in the ACC’s favour. A total of 1,159 reviews were withdrawn or settled over that 12-month period.

💬 Andrew Little: The settlement could be in the worker’s favour.

I am sure that that member would very much enjoy taking the call to speak on this. Injury prevention initiatives—it is one thing to treat the injury, it is another thing of course to prevent it in the first place, and ActiveSmart—

Report noted.

Electoral Commission