Automated Decision Making for child support payments

Find out how we use Automated Decision Making (ADM) for Inland Revenue (IR) child support payments.

When we say 'IR child support payments', we mean:

  • when you get child support through IR and we treat this as income for your benefit and most other payments you get from us, and
  • when child support you have to pay to IR that is formula assessed is counted as an essential cost for your Temporary Additional Support (TAS) payment. 

About Automated Decision Making

For some child support payments, there are some automated processes where our system makes a decision. This will be a decision about how your child support income affects the payments you get from us.

The decision will be based on:

  • the child support information IR shares with us, and
  • the information we already hold about you (e.g. the type of benefit you get).

This is called Automated Decision Making (ADM).

If we make a decision using ADM, we'll make sure you know about it and what to do if you don't agree with a decision made in this process. You can read more about it on this page under the heading 'We'll tell you when we use ADM'. 

We also have an ADM Standard with certain requirements that our ADM processes have to meet. You can read more about the ADM standard on this page under the heading 'Our ADM Standard'.

Our staff will not be involved in the decision making

Our staff will not be involved in the decision making, unless:

  • there's an exception, or
  • you've told us you've had a change in circumstances.

Examples of an exception or a change in circumstances could be that:

  • we can't easily match your information with the information we've got from IR
  • you're changing from one benefit to another.

If there's an exception or you've had a change in circumstances, our staff will manually check how your income affects your payments. 

If you get child support through IR

We use ADM for child support payments when:

  • they are collected and paid through IR
  • you get them paid in your bank account from IR
  • they relate to a period on or after 1 July 2023, and 
  • IR shares your child support payment information with us and we match it with your record.

Our system will then automatically treat your child support as income when working out your benefit rate and most other payments you get from us.

Any income you get could affect your payment from us. This means your payments from us could automatically go up, go down or stop for a while.

How your payment rate changes depends on:

  • the amount of child support you get
  • what type of benefit you get, and
  • your other income.

Find out how your child support income could affect your benefit

If there's a public holiday, your payment from us could come through early. This means your child support income will be processed after we pay you. So you may get more money from us then you were meant to, and have a debt.

If you have to pay child support to IR

Child support you have to pay to IR that is formula assessed can be counted as an essential cost for Temporary Additional Support.

If your IR child support is included as an essential cost for your Temporary Additional Support, we will use ADM when:

  • you have to pay child support to IR that is formula assessed
  • these payments are included as an essential cost for your Temporary Additional Support
  • you have given consent to IR sharing your formula assessed child support payments with us
  • you're re-applying in MyMSD for Temporary Additional Support because it's due to stop soon, and
  • your formula assessed child support payments have not changed.

Our system will automatically check to see if your child support payment has changed.

If your child support payment:

  • hasn't changed, our system will continue to process your Temporary Additional Support re-application
  • has changed, our staff will review your payment and update your Temporary Additional Support appropriately.

If you get child support through IR, we'll send you a letter if:

  • IR shares your child support information with us, and
  • your payments from us change.

The letter will tell you:

  • the amount of child support IR shared with us,
  • what your average weekly amount of income is, and
  • how much your benefit or payment from us will be.

Average weekly amount of income

When we get your child support payment information from IR, we'll treat this as your income for the next month. This means the next 4 or 5 weeks from the date you receive the child support payment. It could be 4 weeks, or 5 weeks, it depends on the number of weeks until you get your next child support payment from IR (as long as the paying parent has paid on time). 

We'll take the total amount of child support that IR has told us about and average it out over these 4 or 5 weeks. We do this to get a weekly amount.

You can see your weekly income amount in MyMSD.

About MyMSD

The Group General Manager Income is accountable for decisions made through ADM for child support payments.

If you don't agree with a decision because you think there's an error with the child support information we've used, our staff can help fix it. Talk to us.

We may need to contact IR to confirm your information.

We have an ADM Standard with certain requirements that our ADM processes have to meet.

For any new ADM process, our staff do an assessment using the Ministry's Privacy, Human Rights and Ethics Framework. As part of that assessment, they'll make sure the ADM process meets our ADM standard.

Examples of our ADM Standard requirements are that an ADM process must:

  • have the outcome we would expect to happen if a person was doing that action
  • ensure you get your full and correct entitlement, and
  • not be unfairly biased or discriminatory.

With any ADM process we use, we're also committed to following principles for safe and effective use of data and analytics. These principles are outlined on the Privacy Commissioner website.

Our ADM Standard - MSD website
The Privacy, Human Rights and Ethics Framework - MSD website