The Swamp Report

30 September 2012

Privacy breach victims to sue ACC

An article from the Sunday Star Times by David Gadd and Marika Hill

Sex abuse survivors are planning to sue ACC to force a significantly boosted payout for breaching their privacy in the ongoing Bronwyn Pullar whistleblower saga.
ACC sent apology letters in June to sensitive-claims clients and offered to pay them $250 if they agreed to stay silent, after one of New Zealand's biggest privacy breaches in August last year. The "insulting" offer came after ACC mistakenly released the names and details of 6500 claimants, including 250 sensitive-claims clients who are victims of sexual abuse and violent crimes, to claimant Pullar.
Wellington lawyer John Miller, a specialist in taking on ACC, said more than 100 claimants affected by the massive Pullar breach had approached him to take the case. He said those wanting to pursue ACC were sensitive claimants who generally had long simmering feelings of being poorly treated by the ACC system. Although a claimant with a normal injury could shrug off the privacy breach, for sensitive claimants "this is the last straw".
"It's a corrosive environment they are in with ACC, frankly. The people I have spoken to, they are insulted by $250, it is a derisory amount for the torment they have gone through."
Worse was ACC's requirement that claimants sign a confidentially agreement if they took the payment. "They feel they are being told ‘now go away and shut up and sign a document to say you are going to shut up forever more'."
He said that although technically class action claims were not possible in New Zealand, the process worked with one claim taken and if it won it set a precedent. ACC would be asked to settle with everyone, or face losing case after case with legal costs compounding the settlement payouts. He said the process had worked before and usually ACC saw sense.
Miller would not be drawn on what level of compensation would satisfy claimants, but said past privacy breaches had won payouts of anything from $2000 to $40,000. It depended on the severity of the consequences. In 2003 he said ACC paid $8000 for sending a man's earnings details to his wife, resulting in divorce because he had kept his income secret from her.
The Dominion Post revealed in July that ACC paid out almost $50,000 for eight privacy breaches in the past three years.
However, the government agency refused to divulge the amount of each payment.
Following an investigation in the Pullar blunder, the privacy commissioner found that systemic weaknesses at ACC and an "almost cavalier" attitude towards claimants' information led to the breach. The privacy breach led to ACC introducing strict privacy policies and saw an exodus of top staff.
ACC chairman John Judge, chief executive Ralph Stewart and board members John McCliskie, Rob Campbell and Murray Hilder all departed from the agency.
ACC has so far refused to comment publicly on the financial settlement payments.

29 September 2012

ACC claimants plan legal bid for more compensation

A news report from One News

ACC claimants who have had their private details exposed in a major privacy breach are launching legal action to claim more compensation.
Nearly 7000 clients have been offered less than a few hundred dollars in compensation after their personal details were accidentally emailed to former National Party figure Bronwyn Pullar.
However, the mother of a 12-year-old client involved in the privacy leak claims that figure is not enough.
The mother, whose identity cannot be revealed because her daughter is a sexual abuse victim, claims ACC's $250 compensation offer is insulting.
"I want her to see that those that have done wrong are going to front up and treat it with the appropriate, the appropriate response and not just be fobbed off with a bit of pocket money."
Her daughter is one of 200 sensitive claimants offered $250. Two months since the offer was made, only 84 have claimed the money.
She, along with other ACC claimants, is planning to pursue ACC for a payment worth thousands of dollars
"If you're just one person then $250 is a lot of effort to go to the Privacy Commissioner and the Human Rights Tribunal, but if there's a group then you know it makes more sense to go and we'll probably take some group action," said lawyer John Miller.
So far ACC have paid out $21,000 in compensation to privacy leak victims in exchange for their silence.
"There may be people in ACC right now who're saying 'well most people haven't taken up this offer, that's a bit of a win for us' - well actually hold the phone," Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague.
ACC refused requests for an interview, saying they are bound by a confidentiality clause in the compensation agreement.

© 2012 Television New Zealand Ltd

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/acc-claimants-plan-legal-bid-more-compensation-5108082

19 September 2012

ACC backs down on privacy initiative

An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett

The ACC has partially backed down on a new privacy initiative adopted in the wake of the Bronwyn Pullar affair but which was criticised as costly and inconvenient for clients.
However the corporation has only relaxed the new rules intended to protect privacy for sensitive claimants - those who have suffered rape or sexual abuse, whose privacy is supposed to be a priority for the corporation.
The recent review of ACC's privacy practices was launched following the Bronwyn Pullar privacy breach and prompted a new policy where claimants were required to collect sensitive documents from ACC offices rather than having them couriered to them.
But claimants such as Napier woman Jacqui Scott said the new policy meant it was now costly to access information held by ACC about her.
"For me, I'm disabled, and live in Napier. It means I have to pay for a taxi over to the Hastings office every time I request documents and need to collect them" she told Hawkes Bay Today recently.
"I'm looking at about $40 to $50 each way, and it could end up costing me about $100 every time."
Clients can choose to receive the information in the form of an encrypted CD couriered to them but that has also been criticised as expensive for those who want hard copies or impractical for those lacking computer skills.
ACC told Hawkes Bay Today the policy was "not a cost-cutting exercise, but a proactive step we've taken to improve the security and protection of client information".
"These changes have been introduced with our clients' best interests in mind, because they reduce the risk of a client's hard copy file ending up in the wrong hands."
But just a few weeks after the new policy was introduced, the Herald this week obtained a recent letter from an ACC manager to a sensitive claimant in which the manager says corporation's Sensitive Claims Unit had sought "further advice from senior management".
"It has been confirmed that ACC are now able to send copy files for sensitive claim clients only, directly to their home address."
A sensitive ACC claimant who did not wish to be named said the new privacy policy and partial back down was "another example of ACC being consistently inconsistent".
"They are making kneejerk reactions without even considering one iota of what claimants require or request or need."
The claimant said the policy requiring claimants collect documents didn't take into account the needs of clients.
"For myself it's a 180km round trip."
The claimant said ACC "should be asking each client which is their preferred method of delivery, simple end of story".
A spokeswoman for ACC said the corporation had opted to continue couriering files to sensitive claims clients, "with special measures taken in the couriering".
That included a stringent "track and trace" process and courier follow up.
ACC would also only courier to a verified client's home address, she said.

18 September 2012

ACC's suicide snub adds to family pain

An article from the Dominion Post by Marty Sharpe

The number of families of suicide victims granted support from ACC has declined since changes to legislation in 2010.
A woman whose daughter took her own life after suffering an abusive relationship said the changes meant surviving family were not considered victims.
The woman said her 21-year-old daughter took her life in Christchurch in November 2010. She left behind a young son.
The woman, now a sickness beneficiary and living in Wellington, had been struggling to pay the $7000 for her daughter's funeral.
She sought help from ACC but was told the corporation no longer provided cover for families of suicide victims, unless the suicide was due to a mental injury caused by physical injury, sexual abuse or a work-related mental injury.
"I've got it [the funeral bill] down to about $4500 . . . It's just been devastating. It really has. I don't think people know what it's like. Anyone in that situation needs all the help they can get," the woman said.
Figures provided by ACC under the Official Information Act show the number of suicide claims accepted by the corporation dropped from 347 in the 2009-10 year to 127 in 2010-11 and just 51 in the 2011-12 year. The average number of suicides over the past five years was 543.
Between July 2008 and July 2012 the corporation paid $19.8 million to families of suicide victims. This was paid in weekly compensation, childcare, survivor grants and funeral grants.
Labour changed the law in 2008 to class all suicides as accidents.
When former ACC minister Nick Smith changed the law two years ago, he said suicide was not an accident and should be considered a health issue similar to heart disease or cancer. The original act in 1972 excluded suicide, he said.
One of the country's top lawyers specialising in ACC legislation, John Miller, was not surprised at the drop of claims.
"ACC will just knock them back and people will be in such a state they won't often fight it.
"The problem is these people leave dependants. Just because a husband or partner can't cope with bankruptcy or something like that, is it right that they leave the family bereft of income?"
Labour ACC spokesman Andrew Little said anyone who took their life had clearly lost perspective and was incapable of understanding the consequences of their action.
"No family asks for a family member to commit suicide and it can leave them in a very difficult situation. At a time when ACC has made a surplus of over $3 billion, it's not as if this is an area they cannot afford to cover.
"We will review this when back in office," he said.
ACC Minister Judith Collins said the objective of Mr Smith's reform was "to ensure ACC is affordable, sustainable and fair for claimants and levy payers".
"My priorities for ACC are to ensure entitlements are delivered transparently and fairly to those who need them," she said.

HOW NICK SMITH CHANGED THE RULES
In 2001 the Labour government introduced changes to the Accident Compensation Corporation Act that meant entitlements were paid to families of victims whose suicide was the result of mental illness (ie not necessarily a mental injury). In 2008 this was extended to cover all suicides.
This meant families of suicide victims could receive a funeral grant, a survivor's grant of around $5000, funding for counselling and a share of income-related compensation for dependants.
Two years later National's ACC Minister Nick Smith changed the law, so families of suicide victims only received entitlements if ACC established the person who committed suicide was not able to appreciate the consequences of their action, or that a previously covered mental injury caused, or contributed to, the suicide.

13 September 2012

ACC specialists fees reveal huge doubts about independence

A press release from the Green Party by Kevin Hague

Evidence that ACC is paying some medical specialists up to half a million dollars a year, an average of up to $1666 each client, reveals huge doubts about the independence of some of the corporation’s favourite doctors, the Green Party said today.
“I have documents showing ACC paid some of its top specialists up to $500,000 a year for between 300 and 500 clients,” Green Party ACC spokesperson Kevin Hague said.
“The enormous volume of work and the huge fees paid to these specialists suggest they have been well and truly wrapped up in ACC’s processes for delivering its goal to ‘target the low hanging fruit’ – the people with long term injuries.
“It would be totally unacceptable if the corporation was using doctors it can rely on to deliver assessments that meet that target.
“ACC has a well-established and clear goal of exiting people from the scheme and it is crucial that medical assessments are seen to be truly independent.
“It seems little has changed since Judge Trapski’s damning 1994 report that found, in the case of one favoured ACC specialist, that he’d been used over the years as ACC’s “hit man.”
“Trapski warned then that ACC’s medical assessors need to not only function as independent specialists but must be seen to be independent.
“Favouring a select group of specialists whose medical opinions appear to favour ACC’s agenda is not being seen to be independent.
“The huge fees paid to these assessors, combined with the extremely high rate that ACC’s decisions on long term claimants are overturned at review, reveals real concerns about the fairness of their decisions.
“The ACC Minister must urgently enquire into the appointment of these specialists, and instruct her new board to devise a way to appoint truly independent assessors.
“In answer to my questions in the House today the Minister seems to share our concerns and be determined to actually achieve independent assessments.
“An option would be to bulk fund DHBs to provide a rolling roster of specialists to provide ACC assessments in their region, or contract with professional colleges to ensure the assessments are independent,” Mr Hague said.
Data received through OIA on the payments made and workloads of ACC assessors: http://www.greens.org.nz/misc-documents/data-received-through-oia-payments-made-and-workloads-acc-assessors

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1209/S00211/acc-specialists-fees-reveal-huge-doubts-about-independence.htm