A beneficiary with dependent children had their benefit halved for more than seven months - the longest sanction applied this year.

The details were released by the Government after Green Party spokeswoman on poverty Marama Davidson lodged official questions to Minister Anne Tolley.

"I can advise the Member that as at 30 June 2017 the longest graduated sanction applied to a working age main benefit client with dependent children was 218 days," Tolley said.

FAIRFAX NZ Social Development Minister Anne Tolley said Work and Income works intensively with families facing benefit sanctions to ensure they could get back on the right track.

"I am advised that Work and Income attempted unsuccessfully to speak with the client several times over the period of the sanction. Clients are notified when a work obligation failure is initiated."

READ MORE:

* Benefit raise, tax cuts for poorest and hikes for wealthy in new Greens policy

* Green Party out of Parliament, Labour surges in new poll

* Under the line: Impact of poverty on children's health

* What poverty looks like: Meet the Sikaleti brothers

Where a sanction was applied to a single client or couple with dependent children, they would receive 50 per cent of their main benefit and supplementary assistance, like the accommodation supplement or emergency payments.

Davidson said Government targets had nothing to do with caring for people and everything to do with getting people off benefit.

"Families with children are being subject to these harsh sanctions. But really though, one week of having less income than what you expect, is going to have a cumulative bad impact.

"This one works out to be six or seven months - that's just going to create long-term hardship. It's going to create health hardship, debt hardship, education hardship."

She said she was being told work and income offices "that any reduction of what is already a meagre amount of income has devastating impacts".

"Which is why the Green Party wants a welfare system that treats everyone with dignity, but is also allowing for families to have enough income to survive."

Davidson said any reduction was "going to wipe out those people's ability to afford the real basics". The party wanted to remove all sanctions in its policy, but Davidson's comments have suggested a slight shift from former co-leader Metiria Turei's, who wanted all sanctions and obligations gone.

"Sure, there are obligations that might be quite useful to stay in place but the whole point about the obligations is to first of all make sure that people have got a way to improve their situation," Davidson said.

"There's no point in having harsh sanctions when in the first place, income levels don't allow people to improve their situation."

Tolley said sanctioning was a last resort and Work and Income worked intensively with clients who found themselves in that position.

"Work and Income inform people about their obligations when they apply for a benefit, and they work proactively with them to ensure they meet their obligations.

"Sanctions do not always result in any impact on people's benefit payments and the majority of people meet their obligations," she said.

It was "relatively simple to re-comply with obligations".

"And the vast majority of people re-comply within four weeks of being sanctioned. Once this is done, payments can recommence straight away."

When a person with children had been sanctioned for two weeks, Work and Income phones the client to discuss their situation. After four weeks, if the client hasn't re-complied, Work and Income arranges an appointment to further discuss their situation.

"In this particular case, I am advised that Work and Income attempted to contact the person multiple times unsuccessfully," Tolley said.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Social Development, in the year to June 30, 75 per cent of sanctioned clients (627) with dependent children had re-complied within four weeks.

The number of sanctions had increased by 8.2 per cent in the past 12 months from the year prior, with 15,619 imposed. MSD said the increase as case managers were spending more time having "work focused" conversations with people.

Most obligations failures resulted from clients not attending arranged appointments - in the June 2017 quarter, this accounted for 63.7 per cent of reasons (9,942).