SpeechChildrenAngie Warren-Clark (Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee): Thank you Madam Chair. As the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee it's my pleasure to lead off the debate for Vote Children for the 2023-24 Estimates.The Hon Kelvin Davis appeared before the select committee to discuss the vote. I want to thank the Minister for attending this session and I want to thank the chief executive officers and the officials for appearing and responding to written and oral questions. And I also wish to thank our select committee clerks and also the select committee itself for the hard work that we do during this time.Oranga Tamariki the Ministry for Children was established in November 2017 to make the existing care and protection system more centred and focused on prevention and early intervention. The Minister for Children is responsible for the whole vote except for one appropriation relating to the Crown response to the royal commission of inquiry to abuse in care. Oranga Tamariki administers the vote. Total funding sought for the vote in 2023-24 is $1.54 billion. The main appropriation in the vote is the multi-category appropriation: investing in children and young people. The appropriation has $1.46 billion allocated for it which is up on the previous year.Vote Oranga Tamariki included seven new policy initiatives in 2023-24. The Minister was asked what factors had contributed to the increase in youth offending despite a 63 percent decline over the last decade being noted. The Minister said that ram raids received a disproportionate amount of media attention and pointed out that they comprise 0.38 percent of crime. The Minister added that many youth offenders had experienced a great amount of trauma in their lives. He said the offending arose from a combination of factors which the Government was working to address through several Ministers.We also asked how Oranga Tamariki planned to reduce youth offending. The Minister explained that a number of new programmes are targeting recidivist youth offenders including Kotahi te Whakaaro which provides a wraparound response for youth offenders aged under 14. About 73 percent of youth referred to this programme had not reoffended.We asked how Oranga Tamariki supports children under the age of 14 who are caught breaking the law. We heard it now uses the Kotahi te Whakaaro approach to involve the wider family as well.We asked how iwi and Māori service providers would be supported by Budget 2023. The Minister explained that the Future Direction Action Plan allows Oranga Tamariki to build working agreements with iwi and Māori service providers.We asked what Oranga Tamariki is doing to reduce physical harm to children by their caregivers and noted it is redesigning the complaints system with non-governmental organisation VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai so that people who had experience of being in care could give direct feedback on the system.We asked what improvements Oranga Tamariki had made to its care and protection residences. Oranga Tamariki told us it has set the goal of making its care and protection residences a therapeutic place for children to stay in. This included making buildings safer for children.We asked what programmes were in Budget 2023 to upskill current social workers and train new social workers. The Minister said that Oranga Tamariki is focused on implementing more iwi-led practice for social workers. Te Puāwai which commenced in January 2023 is a programme that aims to create a wellbeing-focused practice framework for social workers. Whānau who receive help from their social workers also noted a positive difference in their practice.We covered a lot of ground during our investigation and the Estimates hearing was undertaken over a good long hour of time. I wish to acknowledge the Minister for the time that he spent in the chair. Thank you.