Walker Holly: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3541. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
10. 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: Can she confirm that in the year from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011 71 children and young people were abused while in CYFS care? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 In 2010 I asked Child Youth and Family to review cases where children placed in Child Youth and Family care had been further abused or neglected. It quite frankly horrified me that we did not know how many children and young people in our care were abused and re-abused as it was not recorded as the member will know from the written answer that I gave her. Subsequently the review showed that in 2010-11 there were 71 children and young people in Child Youth and Family care who were abused. Of these 30 cases were by the child’s Child Youth and Family - approved whanau or non-whanau caregiver and 41 cases were by third parties. That is less than 1 percent of all caregivers. International comparisons are 0.5 percent to as high as 7 percent. No abuse though and certainly no re-abuse is tolerable. 
Holly Walker 
: What has she done to ensure the safety of those 71 children 30 of whom as she said were abused by their Child Youth and Family - approved caregiver and can she assure the House that not one of them has suffered further abuse in care since? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: What happened was that it took 7 weeks for a social worker to work through all of the review of all of those cases. Since then we have seen from memory 13 of them be prosecuted by the police. The others were not—even though there was substantiated abuse it was not at a level that the police could actually prosecute. I am assured by the department that all of those children are now being cared for are safe. We have no caregivers who have substantiated cases of abuse against them still in a place of looking after children. 
Holly Walker 
: Can she confirm that the cases of those 71 children were discovered only by a one-off manual count of data at individual Child Youth and Family sites because Child Youth and Family keeps no central records of reports of abuse of children in its care? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes the member is right. It keeps the information at a local level and supposedly goes through it. As I say I was concerned about that particularly when I first became Minister. I then got an experts group together. At that point we had reports that the figure was as high as 1800 children being re-abused. They are our most vulnerable as I always say. That is not just a statement; it is actually the reality. They really are in a position of being the most vulnerable children in this country. Once we started looking into the details of it it was not as high as first projected—not that it was acceptable but it was better than what it was going to be. Some of them were caught prior to the review being done so it was not just because of that manual review that they were found; some were found well before that. What it did though was give a snapshot of actual numbers. 
Holly Walker 
: Will she then commit to a full manual review of all Child Youth and Family sites for the years 2001 to 2009 in order to find out how many other children and young people have been abused in Child Youth and Family care in recent years and put the appropriate support in place for these people? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: No because what we are saying is that it is not that we do not know who they are or where they are; it is just that the information is not collected at a national level. So actually the regional sites do know and are getting to those cases and are going through them. What they did not do was actually collect them for national data and what we are now doing is seeking to do that. It was not because we did the manual review that we found them. They had already been found; they just had not been collected nationally. 
Holly Walker 
: So can she confirm that Child Youth and Family will now collect all of this data nationally on abuse in care and does she agree that the abuse of these children and young people while in care raises serious questions about the vetting process for Child Youth and Family approved caregivers and the ongoing safety of children in care? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: What we do need to do is keep it in perspective. I want to say that no abuse of children is tolerable or acceptable in this country but it is less than 1 percent. I would like it to be 0 percent but unfortunately in today’s world that is not possible. It is 0.75 percent of those caregivers. They are actually processed but unfortunately we are not in every home and able to make sure that every child is cared for at the level that we would like. What I can promise the member is that first they are followed up there are processes in place they are prosecuted whenever possible and those children are not left in unsafe circumstances. 
Holly Walker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer. I appreciate that there were several parts to the question but I do not believe she actually addressed the question about whether the data will now be collected nationally by Child Youth and Family. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think it was a fair supplementary question. The Minister may have overlooked that and she may be prepared to answer it. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I am. We are collecting it the best we can but it is going to take a complete IT change for us to collect it at a national level on a continued basis. So I am looking at ways that we can do that as we are upgrading the system. 
Holly Walker 
: I seek leave to table the Minister’s answer to written question No. 4968— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! No written questions are available to all— 
Holly Walker 
: It has not yet been publicly released. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It will be released imminently. 
Holly Walker 
: I was advised by the Table Office that— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We do not table answers to questions. There is a process for that being available to members in the House here.