Bradford Sue: Urgent Debates — Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
Bradford Sue: Urgent Debates — Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
[Volume:613;Page:9647] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The debate we are having today is very timely and I would like to thank the National Party and ACT members who called for it; also Mr Speaker for allowing it. Review after review has been done of this department and of course yesterday Jackie Pivac resigned. 
First of all I would like to acknowledge the starting point of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. It was in late 1999 under the National Government not under the current Government. The genesis of the department was very much characteristic of what I think of as the Rankin era under the National Government. For example as soon as the new department was set up a new logo was developed at the cost of $18000. The department had a change of name and even to this day I find that people still do not know its correct name; it is referred to by many different names. On top of that the person who was appointed to lead it appeared as far as I can tell not to have a particularly social work practice background. Ms Brown as she was then had started work in the benefits and pensions section of the Department of Social Welfare and went on to become a senior manager in the Income Support office at Takapuna. She did not really have a substantial background in social work practice. One of the first activities of the new department’s boss in October 1999 was to spend $13000 on sending two managers to a 5-day course in Gulf Harbour—a residential leadership course that cost $6500 a head. It was very similar as some members will recall to the courses at Wairakei that Work and Income staff were sent to. It epitomises the excesses and the lack of focus on what really matters in that late period of the 1990s. 
But of course it is 4½ years since then and the problems have continued after that rather unfortunate start. In March 2001 we had the results of the Brown review. Judge Mick Brown did an excellent job of reviewing the functions and operations of the department. I gather from colleagues today that Judge Brown himself is quite disappointed that so many of his recommendations have not been followed through despite the efforts of many within the department. In some 57 recommendations he pointed out huge deficiencies and gaps not only in the systems of the department but also in social work practice. He said that it was absolutely imperative that the performance and capability of the department be improved to tackle the waiting-list problem and to tackle the issue of children being placed in inappropriate care. He said there was a desperate need for organisational change including better monitoring and better information systems and a need for a lot more focus on staff training and development. For anyone who knew anything about the department that report was not a surprise. It was a much-needed summary of what needed to be changed and Labour said that yes it would do it. 
But the next thing we know is we suddenly discover earlier this year that there is to be a baseline review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. The result of that has been even more shocking. As one person has said the report indicates that the “entire CYF system is unbalanced and unstable”. I shall mention some of the conclusions of the baseline review. The review team could not even find out what the department’s sustainable financial baseline should be which is quite a stunning indictment on a large and critical Government department. The department’s problems are deep and systemic. It is very unsure about its priorities. There is mismatched effort—too much time is taken trying to meet quotas rather than there being a focus on the quality of what it is doing. There is a large variation in the quality of service delivery critical gaps in information and large problems with basic information and management systems. The report is really building on what happened with the Brown ministerial review. It is time for a change. 
The cases have continued. Other members have talked about some of them. I think everyone in the country knows about some of the cases. The most recent tragedy of course was that of Coral Burrows and we have had the shocking information that Coral’s father did make a 21-minute call to the department’s call centre. For some reason the person who took the call did not identify that there was a real problem behind the call. As far as we can tell prior to any investigation by the Government the call was left to one side without even any record being made of it. Once again I question the quality of the social workers the kind of experience and background of the people who take these calls. I think there are about 17 social workers working at the call centre. What is their background? As a mother I cannot imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a call like that. All I know is what has been in the media—and most of us are in that position. How would we feel if someone made such a call about a child? Could we imagine not taking action on it? What age are the social workers? Do they have any life experience? Do they have any experience in social work practice itself? Who supervises and supports those social workers? What are the management systems behind them that enable them just to miss a 21-minute call and not think it meant anything? I think we all mourn the loss that that call represented. 
The resignation of Jackie Pivac was an honourable move. I congratulate her on taking this stand yesterday. It is obviously a sad day and after 31 years in the public service Jackie Pivac does deserve our thanks for the effort she has made. But I do think it has been the honourable thing to do and that it clears the way for a new chief executive officer to really take charge and change this department in the dramatic way that it must be changed following the baseline review. 
There is a babysitting body now in charge of the department made up of people from Treasury the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Social Development. I say that is all well and good in terms of things like finances and management systems but what about the need for expertise in social work practice which is actually at the heart of the statutory function of the department? I would very much like to see someone like the Commissioner for Children Cindy Kiro added to that oversight body because without someone with experience as a mother and as a social work practitioner who understands front-line social work I do not think we will really get the rigour that is needed given the state of this department. We need oversight from people who actually understand the situation faced by front-line social workers and the need they have for adequate support and supervision behind them. 
The solutions to the problems lie in implementing both the Brown and the baseline reviews. All the answers are there I think in terms of the department itself including the fact that the social workers who work for the department need to be trained properly to be looked after properly and above all to be treated with respect. The staff themselves need to treat callers and the people they are dealing with with respect. They also need to take more care with the families—take a more holistic approach—and understand that the families of children also need a little more care and attention. 
Other members have mentioned and I agree too that we also need to look at the broader picture. We need to look at how we deal with things like child poverty. This Government should do a lot more to address child poverty through things like reforming family support and family assistance. It should support my member’s bill for a universal child benefit. Poverty and unemployment themselves are exacerbating factors in many of the problems for these families. We also need an immediate repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act. That in itself—the fact we accept a law that allows people before the court to get away with having beaten their children with bits of wood or hosepipes—actually exacerbates the whole culture of abuse of children that we have in this country. I think that both in law and in practice we have to do everything we can as legislators to end that culture of abuse. 
Above all it is up to all of us to have more respect for children. As Judge Mick Brown Dr Hassall and others have said in these debates what underpins this situation in the end is the fact that it is not up to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services on its own to solve these problems. It is true that the department needs a huge makeover and extensive changes in management and in practice but above all it is up to each of us in this country to learn to understand and respect all our children in a much better way than we do now. It is that culture of abuse that actually leads to so many of these sad situations. It is not just up to the social workers themselves; it is up to us.