Ball Darroch: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 25 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2567. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.DARROCH BALL (NZ First)to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by her statement “Every child has the right to be safe from abuse and neglect and these guidelines will help us build a stronger culture of child protection across New Zealand where the safety and security of children is paramount.”?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development):Yes. I made that statement when I launched two new guidelines Safer recruitment Safer children and Safer organisations Safer children in Hamilton earlier this month. These guidelines are important and will assist organisations employing people working with children by outlining the steps they should take when recruiting as well as developing good child protection policies.Darroch Ball: How can she say that the safety and security of children is paramount when of the 18000 individuals who recognise themselves as social workers in New Zealand more than half either are not qualified or at best hold a certificate level qualification and only around 4000 of them are actually registered?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I think that is a good question and one that I have had discussions about already with the Social Workers Registration Board. It was an issue that was raised in its briefing to me and it has gone away to first review its Act and second come back to me at the end of the year in concert with the work that we are doing around the modernisation of Child Youth and Family and also the roll-out of the children’s teams. I think the board agrees with me that that is the appropriate time to then be looking again at this issue which has been current ever since the Social Workers Registration Board was put in place.Darroch Ball: Does she then share the concern of the Social Workers Registration Board about the number of front-line Child Youth and Family staff who are not currently registered social workers; if so what does she plan to do about it?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: As I said to the member there is a process that we have put in place now with the registration board and those are issues that we will be discussing but Child Youth and Family has worked very hard over the years to support its staff to get the training and the necessary qualifications in order to become registered and it is working towards full registration of all the social workers that it employs.Darroch Ball: How are our vulnerable children protected when under this current voluntary registration regime there is no protection for the title “social worker” whereby even if an individual is deregistered for malpractice they can simply start social work again outside your ministry’s oversight?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I think that those are very good issues to be discussed and they should be discussed by the Social Workers Registration Board. I am sure that not only will that form part of the work that it does but also through the Child Youth and Family modernisation process it should also be addressed. So as I say by the end of this year I think the discussion will have been had. The term “social worker” is used very widely in the community and one of the things that we might be doing is looking at how we define that better and then make sure that we have qualified staff.Darroch Ball: Will she ensure that the Vulnerable Children Act stipulates that all social workers working with our children are under mandatory registration given that the public rightly assumes that this is already the case; if not why not?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Under the Vulnerable Children Act there is a very clear process laid out the first part of which I launched in Hamilton which the member’s primary question referred to. So that was the guidelines and the advice for organisations on how to make sure that they are employing people who are safe to work with children. The second part of that will come into force when the regulations come into force. That will mean that all State agencies that are employing people who work with children will have to go through a very rigorous employment process part of which will relate to their registration but not all of it will relate to that. So the member just needs to hold his breath and wait for those regulations to come into force.