'Discipline is awful': Chief Ombudsman calls for urgent changes to Oranga Tamariki

The Chief Ombudsman is calling for a complete overhaul of Oranga Tamariki (OT), saying it is failing on almost every level.

In a damning report detailing over 2000 complaints made to the Ombudsman about OT since 2019, Misa Peter Boshier says the Children’s Ministry is in a desperate need for change.

Speaking on Pacific Mornings, Boshier says while the Ministry has a good framework, it’s still regularly failing to keep consistent processes.

“Their legislation is pretty good. The practice guidelines are pretty good. The discipline is awful. It can't be right that sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it so wrong. There’s no room for discretional error.”

From the complaints, the Chief Ombudsman investigated 22 specific cases, extracting both good and bad examples of dealings with OT.

Boshier nailed down three main points that need urgent addressing; people aren’t listened to when reporting abuse, tamariki are still being wrongly taken away from Pacific and Māori families without proper process of consultation, and that misinformation is used in the Family Court to sway a judge's decision for placing a child in OT custody.

Boshier, as a former Family Court judge, says it’s irritating and an abuse of power.

“We found some of the evidence is bias and inaccurate. Now I find that really troubling because we’ve got to trust the system, that the judge is given the best information, and we can’t.”

Moving forward Boshier wants to see social workers act on their duty of care and internal performance reviews are necessary to reduce recurring errors.

“There shouldn't be any doubt or any room for error. Even I am peer reviewed and to an extent supervised to make sure that what I’m doing stands the test of integrity and honesty.

“Peer review and supervision in Oranga Tamariki has been missing, I think if that were to be not just vital but compulsory we’d very much remove the margin of error.”

Minister for Children is prioritising

RNZ reports The Minister for Children Karen Chhour wasn't surprised at the Ombudsman's report.

Chhour wants to set clear priorities for Oranga Tamariki and is working with staff to figure out what those priorities are.

"So it's making sure we're actually resourcing frontline staff to be able to have the tools they need to do their job and do their job well. I know that a lot have been overworked, they have big case loads and they're struggling right now. We need to support them in that space and we need to make sure we're getting that space right."

The ACT Party MP says she wants to work with social workers in finding solutions and that it's important people know the agency will take them seriously.