Expert opinion from University of Auckland - Waipapa Taumata Rau
Opinion: Oranga Tamariki has always had its troubles, but the recent Ombudsman’s report Children in care: complaints to the Ombudsman 2019-2023 calls for change “on a scale rarely required of a government agency”.
The report is clearly written, concise, and worth a read. I wonder what change of magnitude it might call for under the current coalition Government?
The report states that more than 2000 complaints were processed in this period and notes that this number is likely to escalate with the Oversight of the Oranga Tamariki Act, 2022 becoming law from May 2023, and the associated development of capacity within the Ombudsman’s office.
The report includes examples of a variety of complaints to the Ombudsman received from tamariki, their whānau, caregivers and others. Subsequent investigations reveal poor practice judgments and damaging outcomes. The case-study examples are scrupulously even-handed, as you would expect from a lawyer of Peter Boshier’s calibre, collectively pointing to the need for radical systemic reform.
Most of the substantive ‘wins’ arising from the complaints process that are detailed in the report are concerned with the need for procedural reform and the associated development of ‘practice policy’ guidelines. The wider remedies proposed as a “starting point” are also largely about better administration and procedures – mechanisms for greater internal consistency and accountability.
The key criticism within the report concerns Oranga Tamariki’s inability to comply with its own legal duties, procedures and guidelines. More detailed procedural guidance and oversight is likely a good start, but will it be enough?
All statutory child protection organisations are structured as decision-making systems (‘notify, investigate-assess, intervene, review’) and Oranga Tamariki is no exception. Errors of judgment within this structure are documented in this report, but state social work practice is riddled with such errors historically.
If you have experience of how such systems work, as I do, it is not hard to know why processes are not properly adhered and to understand how this leads to damaging outcomes. Practice may well be generally better and safer than it was 20 years ago, but the transparency exemplified by the report is a welcome development.
Many critics of Oranga Tamariki are quick to say that a plethora of investigations and reports identify practice failures and that there is still no change. This isn’t completely accurate.
There have been plenty of reports but they are not all the same – there are significant differences because the political context is subject to shifting ideology.
This report references the infamous Hawkes Bay Hospital uplift and the associated ‘discovery’ that Oranga Tamariki social workers routinely made inappropriate use of ‘without notice’ interim custody orders.
However, this practice of risk-averse child rescue flowed directly from the 2015 Expert Panel Review: safe and loving homes at the earliest opportunity to prevent cycles of harm. This dogma was ideologically connected with breaking the scourge of benefit dependency under the umbrella of social investment.
The Boshier Report also references the Malachi Subecz case, the five-year old child who was violently abused and murdered by his caregiver in 2021. This was a situation where Oranga Tamariki failed to accept a notification that it should have investigated. This was undoubtedly a mistake and one with (possibly) fatal consequences, but it followed a raft of subsequent inquiries critical of unnecessary state intervention in the life of tamariki and whānau and all the damage that has resulted from such practice. The ship was turned quickly away from the care and rescue setting because of the prejudicial outcomes for Māori identified in these reports.
When this happens the grunt-work sailors run to the other side of the deck. Add to this the smaller picture context of stressed, time-poor and under-supported workers, a ‘placement’ decision by a child’s mother that could be interpreted as a whānau decision and we have a recipe for the tragic under-intervention outcome that resulted: not an excuse, but a contextual explanation.
Social workers (and the systems that support their decisions) need to be tireless and passionate, and also reflective and dispassionate. Every case is complex; conflicting imperatives must be weighed and balanced. In some of the complaints Boshier reviews, social workers failed to take account of the needs and rights of children; failed to ‘see’ the child. In others, social workers failed to hear and respect the needs of adults; failed to adhere to tikanga-informed practice with whānau.
Negotiating this balance ultimately depends on the skill and knowledge of the social workers doing the mahi. Oranga Tamariki is under-staffed, and workers are tired. They have seen and heard a lot of rhetoric about transformational change and still the abuse and neglect notifications roll in.
To return to the question posed at the beginning of this piece, how is the new Government likely to respond to this report? I have heard that money at Oranga Tamariki has become as tight as it has ever been. We also know child protection practice is typically visited on the children of the poor. Are the poor likely to get poorer under this Government?
The political context directly influences child welfare outcomes. A swing back to risk-averse child rescue is likely; this is always the easiest course for populist regimes. Operational budget cuts are likely to reduce the support made available to struggling families, increasing the need for more intrusive state intervention directed at impoverished families. Poverty in Aotearoa is structured in terms of class and ethnicity.
We also know this Government is not in favour of promoting Māori authority and governance structures. I would argue that previous governments have also fallen short in this endeavour. In 2020 the Office of the Commissioner for Children reached the following conclusion in relation to the future of child protection for tamariki Māori:
“Our call, and the key recommendation in this report, is for a total transformation of the statutory care and protection system. By that I mean nothing short of a ‘by Māori, for Māori’ approach and a transfer of responsibility, resources and power from the state to appropriate Māori entities, as determined by Māori.”
The then-government lacked the political will to achieve this, and the current one clearly doesn’t have any intention of decolonising child protection.
Realising such a vision isn’t simply about ‘giving child protection to Māori’. It involves giving thought about what this means and how to achieve it: a process that should be driven by Māori. This involves a power shift predicated on recognition of te tino rangatiratanga. It would require recognition of the authority guaranteed in te Tiriti and adequately planning, resourcing and developing the sort of genuine transformation envisaged above.
The reforms Boshier champions are important. They may help social workers make the right calls more often (provided that procedural compliance and good decision-making aren’t conflated, as they often are). But unless the wider context described above is understood and confronted, I’m not convinced change “on a scale rarely required of a government agency” is likely; at least not change that radically improves the life chances of whānau in the sights of the state child protection system.
This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared on Ian Hyslop’s blog, Reimagining Social Work in Aotearoa
