Ardern Jacinda: Vulnerable Children Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Vulnerable Children Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17801. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to rise and speak in the Committee stage of the Vulnerable Children Bill. As has been discussed in earlier readings of this bill there has obviously been a long process that has led us to this point beginning with the Minister for Social Development’s green paper and then the white paper and the Children’s Action Plan. This bill is the first attempt to entrench within legislation elements of that action plan so it is therefore an omnibus bill.There are many elements to Part 1 that I would like to touch on in my address. The first is the reference to the Government’s priorities for vulnerable children and the framework that the bill sets out around establishing a Vulnerable Children’s Plan. In clause 4 of Part 1 it states that the “purpose of this subpart is to—(a) support the Government’s setting of priorities for improving the well-being of vulnerable children; and (b) ensure that children’s agencies work together to improve the well-being of vulnerable children.” It may appear from that purpose clause that the Government is establishing an action plan for children.I want to be really really clear here though. The Children’s Commissioner when he presented to the Social Services Committee was still calling for a children’s action plan because the commissioner did not determine the clauses and the framework within this bill to be a general action plan around children’s well-being. I think it is really important that we distinguish between what the Government plans to do here and what is being called for by experts and advocates in the field. Just today in fact we had the Child Poverty Action Group again calling for a broader children’s action plan that is focused on general well-being.What have we seen from the Government to date in terms of its priority setting for vulnerable children? We have seen things like social obligations targets around rheumatic fever and immunisation patchy provision of insulation and initiatives like the Minister’s nit treatment programme. All of these are often isolated projects that are not currently part of a coherent plan; nor do they address the underlying issues around child vulnerability and child well-being. In fact if we really do want to target what we loosely call “vulnerability” which is a very fraught phrase in itself we actually should have an action plan that is focused on children’s overall well-being. That is the way that we can lift both those children and many children who are at risk of vulnerability.What do we have with the framework of this Vulnerable Children’s Plan? What is the Government setting out here instead? It sets out in clause 7 that the plan must be used to set the Government’s priorities for vulnerable children. The use of the word “priorities” is I think really important. We have seen in the past that when the Government really wants to achieve something it will use a target. It will be very specific about what its expectations are for chief executives and departments. Here though in setting out its action plan it is much more focused on a much more generic notion of priorities—things it wants Government departments to focus on for children. I think unfortunately that that is not pitching it as high as we need.It has also set out the priority areas that an action plan may or may not address and that is set out in clause 6. I want to list what they are because it says in clause 6: “In this subpart improving the well-being of vulnerable children”—not all children but vulnerable children—“in relation to the setting of Government priorities … and the preparation of the vulnerable children’s plan … means promoting the best interests of vulnerable children …”. Again this is the Minister’s deliberate targeting of particularchildren. It goes on to say: “(having regard to the whole of their lives) including (without limitation) taking measures aimed at”—I want to emphasise that “whole of their lives” statement; that is important—“(a) protecting them from abuse and neglect: (b) improving their physical and mental health and their cultural and emotional well-being: (c) improving their education and training … (d) strengthening their connection to their families … (e) increasing their participation in decision making about them and their contribution to society: (f) improving their social and economic well-being.”There is an enormous amount of potential in that last part in “(f) improving their social and economic well-being.” Our hope would have been that that element of the plan was firstly much more specific; secondly much more of a priority in the list; and thirdly that it actually set out first of all that in order to improve the social and economic well-being of a child it is important to know what some of the general statistics affecting these kids are. This is where we come back to the notion that if we want to improve something we need to fully understand our starting point. So we have continued to advocate that as part of these plans what we should have had was an official agreed measurement targets and then reporting on those targets so that we know what progress we are making.Of course I am talking about child poverty. We know that we have 285000 children living in poverty. That is a Treasury number. I see the Minister for Social Development is shaking her head but that is a Treasury figure. We know that because Treasury had to revise it. We are not saying that just the measurement is important; we are saying that actually the goal-setting around it is. That is exactly what they did in the UK. Their plan did not amorphously say: “We are kind of interested in economic well-being.” It said: “Let’s get real about this.” It said “Let’s set out what our targets are for improving the economic well-being for these children.” because when you get as specific as that you really start getting accountability. The UK Government reports back to Parliament on progress and that is what we would have liked to see here as well.We have got a point of comparison because Labour already has a bill that does that very thing. It is called the Child Poverty (Reduction and Eradication) Bill. It sets out a similar notion as this bill but it is much more specific in what is required of the Government. It says that you must have a Minister for Children you must have a board with all of the relevant heads of department who are accountable for the plan that is established and you must set targets that cut across all of the areas where we see the effects of poverty: health education housing and social development. Let us not set just priorities; let us set actual key performance indicators. Our bill goes a step further than this framework does. It says that it must be reported against as part of the Public Finance Act requirements. At Budget time we want to know what progress is being made on behalf of children.I have Supplementary Order Paper 436 which would make an amendment to clause 9 and would add in those additional requirements for the plan. It says that periodic targets must be set around economic well-being mechanisms for monitoring must be put in place and we want to see those wider socio-economic indicators. It is about not just measurement but about setting targets to reduce those harmful statistics that we already know about.That is where we felt a little bit disappointed. We felt that the bill could have gone that much further. We have offered a solution on how it could go further and that may notably fulfil some of the requirements that have been asked for by the Children’s Commissioner. The report of the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty set out what it thought a children’s action plan should look like. That is actually very close to what Labour’s bill mimics and we have plucked outelements for the Minister to implement in her bill if she would like to be able to tick off that extra recommendation from the Children’s Commissioner.Moving on to Subpart 2 which covers child protection policies I think it is important that we note when discussing this element of the bill that many Government departments or State entities already have child protection policies in place so I would not want to leave that view hanging. District health boards in particular—various health authorities—do have very robust child protection policies in place that include training their staff to adequately recognise child abuse and neglect. But what this bill does is that it embeds it in policy. There was some debate over whether some of this should be mandatory. I happen to agree with the place the Minister has got to in at least requiring that we see some of those Government entities embodying these policies without going that extra step further. Our position on that was simple: we did not believe that we could move to a place of mandatory reporting without having established robust training in place for those State agencies and indeed beyond State agencies to community organisations who are working with children as well.Secondly we fear that without proper training we would see potentially over-reporting and false reporting and our social services are not equipped to deal with that demand right now. They are virtually unable to deal with the demand they have currently without that kind of additional pressure. So we are not fundamentally opposed to the notion but preparatory work is required.