MSD – services for the future
MSD – services for the future is a multi-year programme to transform how we operate so we can deliver for New Zealanders and focus our resources and investment on the people who need it.
The programme will make significant changes to our underlying systems and introduce redesigned services that put people first. We’ll create better tools and processes for supporting people into employment, modernise our payment system and enable better ways of working with our social sector partners.
Why are we doing it?
We want to improve people’s experiences of engaging with us and ensure MSD can meet future challenges. MSD – services for the future is a service-led, technology-enabled transformation that will modernise core technology systems and processes, tackle system risk and ensure more secure, reliable services for New Zealanders.
Transformation will deliver major benefits. We’ll have cohesive service and operating models that make it easier for people to understand their entitlements and obligations. We’ll significantly reduce the overpayments that can lead to client debt, and we’ll be able to support more people off benefit and into work, with fewer children in benefit-dependent homes.
We’ll have improved digital services, and better targeting so we’re providing the right services to the right people. There will be less red tape for our social sector partners and it will be easier for employers to work with us and fill jobs.
MSD – services for the future will help us achieve the shifts we want to make, set out in Te Pae Tawhiti – Our Future, MSD’s strategic direction, as well as our Te Pae Tata and Pacific Prosperity strategies.
We’re focused on three main areas:
- Work – Delivering services that are responsive to the New Zealand labour market, so employers get timely help and clients get the right level of support to get work-ready, into work, and stay in work.
- Partnering – Working better with partners and reducing red tape so they can focus on helping people.
- Payments – Making sure people get the right financial help and reducing overpayments.
With new ways of working, supported by strong technology platforms, MSD will have the capability to serve New Zealanders for the coming decades.
Timeframe
A change of this size and scope will take time. MSD – services for the future is at the end of year two of a nine-year programme.
We’ve been working on planning, consulting and design, and now we’re into delivery mode.
Where we're up to
In Budget 2025, the Government approved $67 million for 2025/26 and a long-term commitment to the whole of the programme. The funding for this will be held in contingency.
Programme partners
We’ve engaged a number of vendors to support the implementation of the transformation:
- A consortium of partners led by PwC (including Salesforce, Adobe and New Zealand companies Assurity, Sysdoc and Ghost Partners) is providing expertise to design, configure and implement our core service experience platform
- WCC Group B. V. is providing expertise in the design and configuration of our digital employment solution
- Accenture is supplying MSD with services relating to the configuration and implementation of our Oracle system to implement new contracting and procurement functionality.
- At the end of 2024, MSD went to market for a vendor to support a transition to cloud contact centre services, and we expect to finalise this process in mid-2025.
