Proposed redundancies to Oranga Tamariki include the internal watchdog team that reports on abuse occurring under the organisation’s care. Indira Stewart reports.
Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Children, is proposing to disestablish its Safety of Children in Care team, the team that reports on children abused under the Ministry’s watch, and reviews how it complies with care regulations.
It comes as the Ministry announced 447 jobs would be cut in its proposed restructure.
Proposed cuts include Oranga Tamariki’s internal watchdog team which reports on child abuse under
Minister for Children Karen Chhour, who is an abuse survivor and was in care as a child, has been adamant that the protection of children in care would be at the forefront of decision making.
The confidential restructure proposal document, leaked to 1News, shows several teams would be disestablished, with their duties consolidated into a wider service delivery group.
Senior staff in the organisation, who 1News has agreed not to identify, say they were shocked by the proposal to disestablish the Safety of Children in Care team, which they claim “makes no sense” and casts doubt on whether the Ministry would be able to meet its legal requirements to report on the safety of children in care.
“It’s a really insane proposal. It’s hard to digest,” said one staff member. “Everyone’s devastated. [The Safety of Children in Care team] are devastated. It’s really important mahi. The organisation has a responsibility to know who’s being harmed.
“And we’ve got legislative requirements – how are they going to be met if this team is disestablished?”
The specialised Safety of Children in Care team of five people was established in 2019 in response to the National Care Standards Regulations of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The Act sets out the standard of care and requires the Ministry to monitor and annually report on its own compliance.
The Safety of Children in Care team was also tasked with reviewing every case of a child allegedly abused in Oranga Tamariki’s care and reporting the information back to the government.
According to the confidential 110-page restructure proposal document, the organisation proposes to merge the reporting duties of the Safety of Children in Care team under a newly consolidated team called Quality Practice Improvement, understood by 1News to be effective from July 1 if the proposed changes are implemented.
The proposal document says the change will meet cost savings required by the government, but also “strengthen delivery, eliminate duplication and deliver work holistically” toward its obligations. The work of the Safety of Children in Care team will be absorbed into “generalist advisory” roles in the new consolidated department.
But staff are concerned that the work requires expertise which won’t be met by the “generalist advisory” roles.
“That [department] is not designed to take on this work,” said one staff member. “The people who were in those specialised roles already know that mahi and have already built and established those key relationships. We needed some specialist eyes on any abuse that happened in care and the fact that they’re getting rid of it, is just nuts.
“Have we not learned anything from the Royal Commission of Inquiry? It’s like the government is ignoring it.”
The government’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care is a massive six-year project that has investigated abuse of New Zealanders in care from 1950 onward. It concludes at the end of June.
Karen Chhour was unavailable for a five-minute interview this week, but when briefly approached on Tuesday on the bridge in parliament she confirmed some areas of Oranga Tamariki would be “consolidated”.
“But my expectation is we’ll still be getting that yearly report on children in care and safety in care and none of that work will stop.
“It’s just a proposal, nothing has been determined yet and we’re still going through the process, but this is about getting the agency back to its core focus which is the care and protection of young people.”
“I’m sorry I can’t stay longer I’m running late to a meeting!” Chhour said, briskly walking away.
Abuse in care on the rise
The number of children reporting abuse in care has risen every year since the Safety of Children in Care team was established.
In January, the team reported 519 children had experienced abuse in care in the last year, and it investigated and recorded 895 incidents of abuse against those children .
Care placements included non-family caregivers, extended family caregivers, justice residences and immediate family (usually parents). Where children were returned to immediate family, they remained in the legal custody of the Oranga Tamariki Chief Executive while the organisation attempted to support their reunification with their families.
Last year there were 4479 children in Oranga Tamariki’s care. The highest rates of abuse occurred in justice residences (these are not family homes, but resident facilities housing multiple children) where 20 percent of children reported abuse, mostly physical and often by other children.
Over the past year, the team reported 439 incidents of physical abuse, 294 incidents of emotional abuse, 95 incidents of sexual abuse and 67 incidents of neglect. It found staff abused children in 48 of those incidents.
The report doesn’t include children who died in care due to abuse which, 1News understands, is outside of the team’s remit.
The latest figure comes after years of turbulence and increased scrutiny. Since the organisation was formed in 2017, stemming from its predecessor Child Youth and Family Services, it has been under nine reviews and inquiries which have led to massive reforms.
But whether that work has made a meaningful difference is yet to be assessed. In February the Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier made a rare call for large scale changes to Oranga Tamariki after he released a report criticising the Ministry for repeatedly failing to follow its own laws and regulations. Boshier’s review outlined over 2000 complaints and enquiries around the Ministry over the past four years.
This week a Child and Youth Services Review published its research which featured multiple community workers saying they were frustrated at incidents where they have tried to report “last resort” cases and Oranga Tamariki had not acted, leading to concerns that at-risk children would ‘”slip through the cracks”.
The review’s lead author Associate Professor Emily Keddell says a “lack of workforce capacity within Oranga Tamariki” as it struggled to fill posts, as well as funding cuts to the NGO sector, led to serious challenges in responding to child abuse and neglect.
‘These cuts are lethal’
“It scares the crap out of me. These cuts are lethal, they’re savage and it’s going to result in huge damage to the frontline and ultimately to the kids that we work with,” said one social worker within the organisation.
When asked what they thought of the Minister for Children Karen Chhour’s comments that frontline workers and services won’t be affected by the cuts they replied – “That’s absolute bullsh**.”
The social worker said that previously residences had been closed and Ministry staff fired as a result of children reporting abuse in care. They were concerned that there would be nowhere for children to effectively report such incidents without the Safety of Children in Care team.
“It’s flawed logic. I get that some jobs will need to go but I’m sure child protection work is supposed to be non-negotiable. It’s going to be a mess.”
The social worker says she vividly remembers the deaths of babies who suffered abuse during her career such as Nia Glassie, Isaiah Neil and more recently Malachi Subecz. In each of these cases the Ministry came under scrutiny. Subecz’s murder prompted a review by Oranga Tamariki’s Chief Social Worker which found the Ministry’s response to concerns raised about Subecz before his death was inadequate and it accepted full responsibility for its failings.
The social worker who spoke to 1News feared the proposed cuts would leave the Ministry vulnerable to further failings with dire consequences.
“What’ve we learned? Nothing.”
An agency going ‘backwards’
“This goes in the face of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse and state and faith institutions,” says Paora Moyle, a principal advisor to the six-year Inquiry and one of the writers of its report, expected to be released next month.
They are not speaking on behalf of the Royal Commission, but from their lived experience as a survivor of abuse in care and a social worker for more than three decades. Moyle (who uses they/them pronouns) spent 14 years in state care with their siblings and experienced horrific abuse.
“I know what’s real and I know what is harm,” Moyle says. “This is a backwards step. It’s irresponsible. And in the face of the world, it’s idiotic. We look weak.”
Moyle says there was some hope when Chhour, who is Ngāpuhi but grew up in the care system, was appointed Minister for Children, but their faith has now gone out the window.
“If you know what it’s like, why the heck would you not act and do something about what you know harms children?
“… I think she’s playing it safe with her mates and she hasn’t got enough gumption to stand up to them. I would say to her – grow up! This isn’t looking after our babies, this is you looking after the government, your ACT party. If you can’t look after our whānau then get out of there! You don’t belong there!”
From abuse survivor to Minister for Children
“For years I’ve never really told my story as I was ashamed of it,” Chhour said during her maiden speech in parliament in 2021.
“I stand here today not only as a survivor of abuse as a child but as a survivor of our system’s abuse.”
Her speech indicated a desire for reform and change to the system, including on policies that target support for tamariki Māori.
Three years later she was appointed the Minister for Children overseeing almost 450 job cuts to the organisation. “Oranga Tamariki has my expectation that the best interest of all our young people is at the forefront of their decision making. That is my expectation,” she said in parliament last week.
When challenged by Labour’s Spokesperson for Children Willow-Jean Prime as to why she stood by cuts to agencies and services dedicated to the protection of children, Chhour responded:
“Oranga Tamariki needs to get back to its core focus which is care and protection of our young people. We are streamlining the organisation to focus on the care and protection of our young people. We need to get back to the basics and do it better than we have been.”
Chhour has faced criticism this year after saying section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, which legally binds Oranga Tamariki to improve outcomes for tamariki Māori, created conflict between protecting the best interests of the child and race-based factors.
The High Court overturned a summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to Chhour ordering her to provide evidence at its urgent inquiry into the repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. That decision is being appealed.
Oranga Tamariki would not comment on the proposed restructure but said of the 37 percent of its staff affected by the scope of the proposed changes – frontline staff were not included.
The terms “fiscal”, “financial sustainability”, “reducing costs” and “savings” appear more than 25 times in the proposal documents.
Chief Executive Chappie Te Kani’s foreword in the document said the fiscal targets “informed the changes proposed” but was not the “sole driver” for change.
“The change will deliver the savings asked of us, and the focus we need to better deliver on our core purpose,” he wrote.
1News understands feedback on the proposal is due May 15 and a final decision will be announced at the end of June with the new structure effective from July 1.
