The Poutasi review made recommendations that require actions across agencies. In a December 2023 meeting with agencies, we heard that progress has been slow with no real implementation of actions to respond to the recommendations yet. Agencies also had internal reviews to respond to.
We requested information and data from all agencies with responsibilities for implementing recommendations arising from the Poutasi review4. We also requested data and information from the six agencies that completed internal reviews, about progress with respect to those reviews.
We focused our in-person engagement on frontline kaimahi from Oranga Tamariki because of its fundamental statutory role in addressing reports of concern. Oranga Tamariki also advised it had completed all initial actions in response to its internal review, whereas other agencies advised that their implementation was not as complete. We had intended in-person engagement with other agencies, however, their lack of progress means we would have learned little more than Dame Karen Poutasi did through her review.
It was important to us to understand the impact of the practice changes resulting from the Oranga Tamariki internal review. We wanted to understand if the changes are achieving the desired intent, particularly in responding to reports of concern. In addition, most of the recommendations of the Poutasi review, if implemented as outlined, will impact on Oranga Tamariki. We further wanted to understand how work in response to the Oranga Tamariki review may support implementation of the system- focused recommendations.
We intended to include voices of and their in our review, to help understand what might be different for them because of the across-agency response to the recommendations. However, after hearing from agencies that work to respond to the Poutasi review was not yet at a point of implementation, this is not the right time. We will conduct a further review in twelve months, and will look to include the voices of tamariki and whānau in our monitoring at that time. We will also gather qualitative data from other agencies in our next review, to help determine how those agencies are implementing their responsibilities to protect tamariki.
Our next review will also consider objectives that we could not address in this review, because work was not yet at a point to be able to measure progress. We will assess how agencies are measuring the impact of their actions, and the extent to which those actions address the underlying issues and reflect their te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations.
In March and April 2024 we heard from:
The purpose of these engagements was to understand the impact of practice changes at the frontline. Given the focus of this review it was important that we visited and spoke with kaimahi from the two Tauranga sites in the Bay of Plenty region, and specifically Te Āhuru Mōwai site which was the site that assessed the reports of concern for Malachi. We included Auckland and Canterbury as the timing coincided with our monitoring schedule and provided a geographical spread.
In addition, where relevant we have drawn on findings from other engagements undertaken over the 2023/24 year as part of our core monitoring responsibilities.
This includes visits to the Upper South Island (including the West Coast), and Taranaki and Manawatū regions. This enabled us to test whether what we heard in the monitoring for this review also came up elsewhere.
The table below explains how we have used terms in this review.
| Quantity | Term used |
|---|---|
|
1, used as an example of a theme |
For example, a |
|
2 |
A couple |
|
3 or more, but less than half |
Some |
|
Around 50% (where this is more accurate than some or most) |
Many/Around half |
|
More than half |
Most |
|
90%+ |
Almost all |
|
100% |
All |
4 Oranga Tamariki informed us that the quantitative data they provided on reports of concern may vary slightly from their externally published figures. This is because the level of detail required that they use a different data source than usual.