Appendix Two: Using data from the IDI and What About Me? survey

The Integrated Data Infrastructure

The IDI is a large research database that holds de-identified data about people and households. This includes data that government agencies and NGOsCloseNGOs
Non-government organisationsView the full glossary organisations use to administer the services they provide to the public (administrative data) and data from surveys run by Stats NZ.

We used IDI data because:

• it links de-identified data from different sources about individuals and households so we can see the range of services that individuals and whānauClosewhānau
  Whānau refers to people who are biologically linked or share whakapapa. For the Monitor’s monitoring purposes, whānau includes parents, whānau members living with tamariki at the point they have come into care View the full glossary receive
• it means we can follow a range of outcomes for tamarikiClosetamariki
  Children (plural) aged 0-13 yearsView the full glossary and rangatahiCloserangatahi
  Young person aged 14 – 21 years of ageView the full glossary both while they are involved in the oranga tamariki system and later after they have left the system and into adulthood.

Stats NZ has strict criteria around usage of the IDI to ensure people’s information is protected. More detail about how Stats NZ keeps data safe, including descriptions of Ngā TikangaCloseTikanga
Correct procedure, the customary system of values and practices that have developed over time and are deeply embedded in the social context View the full glossary Paihere and Five Safes frameworks, can be found on its website.¹⁹⁵

We are also required to make the following disclaimers about data from the IDI.

Access to the data used in this study was provided by Stats NZ under conditions designed to give effect to the security and confidentiality provisions of the Data and Statistics Act 2022. The results presented in this study are the work of the author, not Stats NZ or individual data suppliers.

These results are not official statistics. They have been created for research purposes from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) which is carefully managed by Stats NZ. For more information about the IDI please visit: https:// www.stats.govt.nz/integrated-data/

The results are based in part on tax data supplied by Inland Revenue to Stats NZ under the Tax Administration Act 1994 for statistical purposes. Any discussion of data limitations or weaknesses is in the context of using the IDI for statistical purposes and is not related to the data’s ability to support Inland Revenue’s core operational requirements. 

Technical definitions of IDI indicators

Our analysis considered people who were resident in New Zealand during 2022. This population was grouped based on their age at the end of 2022 and interaction with Oranga Tamariki:

• during 2022 tamariki and rangatahi aged 0–17
• during their childhood for rangatahi aged 18–25 and adults aged 27–30.¹⁹⁶

We used these groupings¹⁹⁷ on the basis that:

• tamariki and rangatahi aged 0–17 may be currently involved in the oranga tamariki system
• rangatahi aged 18–25 who were in care or custody may be eligible for transition support services during the year
• we wanted to understand later life outcomes for adults aged 27–30 who were involved in the oranga tamariki system as children.

The framework for classifying by oranga tamariki system interaction is illustrated below. 

For the purpose of this work, a person was defined as experiencing a disability if they did any of the following:

• Responded to questions¹⁹⁸ in Census 2018 (or a social survey) as experiencing disability.
• Received a disability allowance or was a child whose parent received a child disability allowance on their behalf.
• Received an invalid’s benefit or supporting living payment (excluding carers).
• Received Ongoing Resourcing Scheme support or School High Health Needs funding.
• Was a Whaikaha client.

The table below contains a summary of measure definitions.¹⁹⁹

Measures marked with an asterisk* used a code module. The Code Modules Initiative is an all-of-data system effort to make New Zealand’s integrated data assets easier to use and understandable for everyone, including non-technical people. Code modules contain high-quality code and documentation for foundational measures needed by researchers.²⁰⁰

Proportion of population group (Māori) with each level of interaction with the oranga tamariki system

What About Me? survey

What About Me? is a nationwide survey of rangatahi aged 13–18. It was conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Social Development in 2021.

Just under 8,000 rangatahi responded to questions about their health, wellbeing, whānau and community. This included just over 7,000 rangatahi in years 9–13 at school and a further 500 rangatahi of the same age in the community. 

We were only able to access the dataset from Stats NZ for those rangatahi who completed the survey in schools. This means the measures are not representative of rangatahi who do not regularly attend school. This is an unfortunate limitation because IDI measures show that some groups of rangatahi in the oranga tamariki system are less likely to regularly attend school and are therefore less likely to have their views represented in the school sample.

The survey included questions about ethnicity and involvement with Oranga Tamariki. This enabled us to understand how tamariki and rangatahi Māori who had been involved with Oranga Tamariki²⁰⁴ felt about many aspects of their life and how this compared to those who had never been involved with Oranga Tamariki.²⁰⁵ Subjective wellbeing measures are particularly important because mostadministrative data comes from people’s interactions with government agencies and services – they don’t tell us anything about people’s perspectives on their own lives.

The survey is planned to be repeated in 2025 and every three years after that and will be called the Youth Health and Wellbeing survey in the future.