WELLINGTON: A disabled person who recruits, trains and pays their own caregivers is not an employee of the Ministry of Social Development, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled.
The finding comes against the backdrop of a wider debate over when people providing or managing disability support can be considered Crown employees.
Alex sought a declaration that the work involved in administering their individualised funding arrangement made them an employee or “homeworker” of MSD.
Individualised funding gives disabled people and their families direct control over the kind of support they receive, and flexibility on how and when they get it.
Alex has received individualised funding since 1998 and recruits, trains, rosters, supervises and pays their caregivers using funding allocated through Disability Support Services.
They argued tasks including maintaining records, submitting claims and meeting compliance requirements amounted to work for MSD. If they did not perform that work, somebody else would have to, they said.
“That experience demonstrated to me that, notwithstanding the language of ‘choice and control’, the Crown retained ultimate authority over my arrangements,” Alex said.
MSD argued the tasks were a consequence of Alex choosing individualised funding rather than other available support options.
ERA member Marija Urlich found that, when the relationship was considered as a whole, it did not amount to employment.
Alex’s alternative argument that they were a homeworker was also rejected. Urlich noted they were receiving care rather than providing it.
The case differs from a landmark Supreme Court judgment in December 2025 involving two parents who provided full-time care for their disabled adult children.
In that case, the Supreme Court found the two carers were “homeworkers” and employees of the state under the Employment Relations Act, entitling them to employment protections including minimum wage and holiday pay.
The Government subsequently introduced the Disability Support Services Bill in May. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston said the proposed legislation would make explicit that family carers were not Crown employees.
The proposed law would prevent future employment claims by family caregivers.