Dear Leigh

 

Thank you for your request for information about the numbers of privacy
complaints against CYFS, or its employees or contractors, over the last 5
years.

 

Unfortunately, our complaints system does not record complaints against
CYFS separately from complaints made against other divisions of the
Ministry of Social Development (MSD) such as Work and Income. The
respondent agency is simply "MSD" for all those complaints. So we cannot
provide you with a figure in response to your request. To get close to
doing so, we would have to make a manual search of all of the complaint
files against MSD to search for references to CYFS. This would require
substantial research time. It would also not be guaranteed to provide you
with an accurate figure at the end of the day as not all the files might
make it clear that CYFS was involved. In addition, we have no means of
searching for complaint files about CYFS contractors.

 

In case it is helpful, though, there were 301 complaints made against MSD
in the last 5 years (starting 1 July 2008).

 

If you are interested in further detail, some of our annual reports
contain more information about how many complaints against MSD were
upheld. For example, pages 28-29 of last year's annual report sets out how
many complaints were received and closed against the top respondent
agencies (including MSD), and the outcome of those complaints: see
[1]http://privacy.org.nz/assets/Files/Repor....

 

All our annual reports are on our website at [2]www.privacy.org.nz. Our
case notes are also on our website, and include some case notes that refer
to CYFS.

 

I hope this is useful for you. If you are dissatisfied with this response,
please contact me to see whether we can assist further. Alternatively, you
have the right to contact the Office of the Ombudsmen to make a complaint.

 

Yours sincerely

Katrine Evans

 

 

Katrine Evans [7]Final PC20 logo2

Assistant Commissioner (Legal and Policy)

 

PO Box 10-094, Wellington 6143

04 474 7590

[3]www.privacy.org.nz

Privacy is about protecting personal information,
yours and others'. To find out how, and to stay
informed, [4]subscribe to our quarterly privacy
newsletter.  You can also follow us on [5]Facebook
and [6]Twitter.

 

 

References

Visible links
1. http://privacy.org.nz/assets/Files/Repor...
2. http://www.privacy.org.nz/
3. http://www.privacy.org.nz/
4. http://privacy.org.nz/subscribe/
5. file:///tmp/blocked::http:/www.facebook.com/PrivacyNZ
6. file:///tmp/blocked::https:/twitter.com/#!/nzprivacy