23 January 2025
Hans
[FYI request #29544 email]
Tēnā koe Hans
Thank you for your email of 13 December 2024 to Oranga Tamariki—Ministry for
Children (Oranga Tamariki), requesting further information relating to your previous
Official Information Act request of 22 November 2024. Your request has been
considered under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act).
I have responded to each part of your request below.
Can you further provide me any information and/or on what constitutes 'harm'
in this context, is this physical/emotional/mental harm, is this
unintentional/intentional harm such as refusing to attend, providing incorrect
information or delaying support to whanau and tamariki, or harm caused by
delays or insufficient resources, such as frontline social workers,
investigations, privacy (CIR) teams and complaint teams.
All tamariki have a right to be protected from all forms of serious harm. The
protection of tamariki is an Oranga Tamariki priority and we have an organisational
and individual responsibility to act to protect the safety and promote the wellbeing
of all tamariki. The best interests of tamariki are at the centre of our decision-
making.
Harm can have a varying degree of impact on te tamaiti. Sometimes a single
traumatic event, for example a violent sexual or physical assault, can have a
significant impact on te tamaiti and may constitute serious harm. Further
information can be found on the Oranga Tamariki Practice Centre website
here.
The constitution of harm is also defined as part of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989
Children’s and Young People’s Well-being Act 1989 found
here.
As such, this part of your request is refused under section 18(d) of the Act, in that
the information requested is publicly available.
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Would any dismissal of staff follow proper investigation and disciplinary
actions or result in instant termination and if harm was inflicted by recent
budget cuts to frontline and back office will the Minister consider increasing
budget to reduce the effects of harm.
In all cases where there has been a potential breach of our policies and/or code of
conduct, Oranga Tamariki follows our disciplinary policy, which requires a fair and
responsible process is followed.
In regard to whether “
the Minister consider increasing budget to reduce the effects
of harm”, this part of your request is seeking an opinion or creation of information,
which is not considered official information for the purposes of the Act.
In addition, what are the current wait times/response times for OIA requests,
Privacy requests and Complaints, how long on average does it take for each
process to be deemed complete.
In the period between 1 July 2024 and 30 November 2024, the average number of
working days taken for Oranga Tamariki to respond to requests under the Official
Information Act as 25.1 days. Please note that this includes responses to requests
where the timeframes to respond were extended under section 15A of the Act.
For Privacy Act requests, timeliness is measured based on compliance with the
Privacy Act. Between 1 July 2024 to 30 November 2024, 80% of requests
completed were either within 20 days or by the extension date provided.
In the period between 1 July 2024 to 30 November 2024, the median number of
days to close a complaint was 51 days. There is an expectation that throughout the
complaint process there is engagement with the person making the complaint from
the beginning until the resolution and closure of the complaint.
In addition to the above, in August 2024 the Minister for Children identified four key
priorities for Oranga Tamariki ensuring the safety of tamariki and rangatahi. You
can find this information on the Oranga Tamariki website,
here.
Oranga Tamariki may make the information contained in this letter available to the
public by publishing this on our website with your personal details removed.
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I trust you find this information useful. Should you have any concerns with this
response, I would encourage you to raise them with Oranga Tamariki. Alternatively,
you are advised of your right to also raise any concerns with the Office of the
Ombudsman.
Information
about
this
is
available
at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by contacting them on 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Phillip Grady
Deputy Chief Executive, System Leadership
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