7. Social Development Minister—StatementsCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister for Social DevelopmentSocial Development Minister—Statements7. CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by her statement the Ministry of Social Development has robust procedures for gathering and protecting personal information"?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Yes. As I said last week just like doctors and counsellors who collect similar data the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has robust procedures for gathering and protecting personal information and has done so safely for a number of years from a variety of sources. Each year MSD provides services and assistance to more than a million New Zealanders including the most vulnerable people in society and holds a variety of information on all of them. Its client base includes children young people families youth working-age people students disabled people seniors and communities. MSD has been storing sensitive data for Child Youth and Family (CYF) and Work and Income for many years. The data warehouse has stringent security processes and policies that are tested regularly.Carmel Sepuloni: How can she stand by her statement when only last year a man visiting a Work and Income office was given another client's details in 2014 a Work and Income client was given a stranger's medical certificate in 2013 the details of 34 clients were emailed to another Work and Income client and in 2012 thousands of personal files were accessed on a computer kiosk at Work and Income?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: What I can guarantee that member is that the ministry takes client privacy incredibly seriously but there is no system in the world that can be 100 percent error free particularly from human-error breaches. As I say each year MSD provides services and assistance to more than a million New Zealanders and holds a variety of information on all of them.Carmel Sepuloni: How can she stand by her statement given that on 10 February 2017 Kelly Stratton from Kaitāia received a letter from CYF about an upcoming family group conference hearing that was intended for a completely different person from a different part of the country and included the private details of a child?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It is always regrettable when someone makes a mistake like that and shares data that they have no right to share but I say to that member that if you are dealing with over a million people a year there is no system in the world that can be guaranteed 100 percent. I can also assure the member that MSD puts the protection of client information very clearly at the forefront of everything that it does.Carmel Sepuloni: How can she say that it is always regrettable when client information is accidentally or mistakenly shared or clients have their privacy breached when the Deputy Prime Minister has in the past leaked private client information of sole parent beneficiaries refused to apologise to those women and would not rule out doing it again?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As I have said in answer to a number of the member's questions MSD deals with information from over a million New Zealanders every year. It holds their information in confidentiality and does its very best to ensure that human error or accident does not result in the sharing of that information.Carmel Sepuloni: What led the Minister to her U-turn over the past 24 hours given a year-long exemption to Rape Crisis and other sexual violence organisations from private client data-sharing and is this an admission that her Government's approach will have a detrimental impact on survivors of sexual violence seeking support?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As I said in the House on a question about this earlier providers ultimately make the decisions about whom they will provide the service to and for. I encourage—as I have with a number of those sexual violence services—providers to come and talk to me. The reality with our specialist sexual violence services is that we are in the middle of a complete redesign of the programmes and the services that are available to people. So what I have said to them is that it is not appropriate at this time while we are co-designing a new system to require data from them when we are not even sure what that end system will look like. So I have said to those services: let us put that to one side concentrate on the co-design of the new services for which this Government has funded an extra $41 million and let us work together to make sure we get an excellent system for those victims of sexual violence.Carmel Sepuloni: Will her Government consider extending the exemption beyond Rape Crisis and other sexual violence organisations to all organisations that will face the exact same challenges of people being deterred from accessing their services including Women's Refuge the Problem Gambling Foundation mental health services and also budgeting services which already have this written into their contracts?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As I have said a number of times every year this Government spends $330 million contracting with NGOs to provide services to some of New Zealand's most vulnerable children and families. We want to make sure that that $330 million expenditure is effective and we want to make sure that we are not duplicating services to some families and ignoring other families who do not get any services. In order to do that we need to collect the basic data and we will continue to require that of people whom we contract with."