Ardern Jacinda: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 15 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9936. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]7.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to theMinister for Social Development: How many notifications did Child Youth and Family Services receive regarding the four neglected children found dirty malnourished with head lice infestations and open scabies wounds prior to their removal by Police in January this year?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): This is a complex case and I have asked Child Youth and Family for a report. Because of the family’s transience—living in a number of regions—I am unable to give detailed information and an actual number at this time. What I can say is there has been previous ChildYouth and Family involvement and notifications over many years but Child Youth and Family was unaware that they were at that residence until 4 January when the police were involved. However these matters are also still before the courts and I cannot prejudice those proceedings in any way.Jacinda Ardern: How is it possible that Child Youth and Family received several notifications of neglect or abuse—in what has been described by police as one of the worst cases they had seen—against a parent who had existing convictions for leaving children unsupervised and yet the children were removed only after the police visited the home?Hon PAULA BENNETT: What I can say is that unfortunately in this country we have literally thousands of substantiated cases like this. They are incredibly complex—Hon Ruth Dyson: Like this? That’s nonsense.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Well we do. We have got more than 22000 substantiated cases of abuse neglect or emotional abuse in this country a year. That is the reality of it. We have more than 6000 children who are removed each year. We will go back and look at the reports from Child Youth and Family. It has had a lot of intervention for some time and a lot of community organisations have been involved as well but at the end of the day I think the actions that have been taken are right.Jacinda Ardern: Why did Child Youth and Family provide no oversight of the children once they had been placed with a family member resulting in the children simply being returned to their parents and to a continued state of neglect as early as 3 days later?Hon PAULA BENNETT: In light of my still getting more information I will give the member as much as I have at this time but I am cognisant that it may change over the next couple of days while I am getting more. From what I understand there were multiple children at the address on the night of 4 January on the Friday night. At that point the police removed the children. Child Youth and Family was involved. It was the police and Child Youth and Family that placed them in what they thought was a safe environment. Child Youth and Family was then involved the next day. It was the understanding that the children were going to stay there and they would then go through a process of where they were placed and what happens to them. When Child Youth and Family went back on the Monday to do that the children were gone. It then spent the next 3 days with the police looking for those children and they were found on 10 January by the police at that address.Jacinda Ardern: Why were there further delays before the children were removed a second time from the house when the police are reported to have found them in the parents’ home not once but twice?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I am not aware of there being delays a second time. So as I pointed out—as I did—they were removed on that Friday night. Child Youth and Family was there on the Saturday. It went back there on the Monday. At that point the children were back with the parents. It was then actively looking for them as were the police and they were found 3 days later. So they were not placed back with the family at all and they were removed at that time and taken to hospital. That is my understanding.Jacinda Ardern: Can the Minister guarantee to the House that this will be an isolated case when in answers to written questions she recently advised that of the more than 100000 substantiated notifications her department has received in the last 5 years approximately a quarter were the second third fourth or even fifth substantiated notification of abuse or neglect of a child—or is she presiding over an under-resourced under-staffed and highly stressed department?Hon PAULA BENNETT: What I can assure the member of is that we spend nearly half a billion dollars on Child Youth and Family in a year. We have increased its funding under this Government by 15 percent over the last 4 years. We have increased the number of extra front-line workers so we have an extra 96 of them and an extra 149 social workers in schools. We have also introduced up to $50 million that will be going into gateway assessments. But let me put it this way to the member: in 2006 we had 1089 unallocated cases; in 2012 there were only 95. Actually the department is responding better than it ever has before but unfortunately we have parents who are incredibly neglectful and we get incredibly sad cases like this.Hon Dr Pita Sharples: What progress has been made with regard to the Iwi Leaders Forum request to return their children home by Child Youth and Family to their iwi whānau?Hon PAULA BENNETT: We have been working on memoranda of understanding with iwi. We have signed our first one and we are seeing developments there. What we are most interested in is whether we can have pre-assessments done so that we know that those children if they do have to be removed are staying within their iwi and are in a safe environment. We are taking it one step further than that and we are now looking at prevention. We also have whānau finders. We have started them and that has certainly been at the behest of my Associate Minister Turia there who is constantly trying to get us better connected with knowing where these children are and how they can stay within their iwi and still be in a safe environment.