Davis KelvinHon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Children): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd just like to thank Angie Warren-Clark as chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee. I do have quite a few points to make but in the interests of time I'll probably just race through them so my apologies now if some of what I say is a bit disjointed. But this does continue to be a significant time of change for Oranga Tamariki. I think it's appropriate that we start by acknowledging the many staff who work for Oranga Tamariki. We'll be the first to admit that we don't get everything right all the time—or they will be the first to admit they don't get everything right—but there are a lot of great people doing their best to make sure that our most vulnerable children their needs are met. Transforming an organization of this size isn't easy and there are a number of challenges and they have been highlighted recently in the media but change is happening. There have been wellpublicised events in youth justice residences and we are taking a comprehensive look about how to address those issues. We are starting to see results of the hard work over the last just under two years that the future direction plan has been in place so I'd like to run through a few highlights. This year Oranga Tamariki has supported nine enabling community prototypes to redesign and reimagine what care looks like for tamariki in those particular communities. That means that partners lead the design the development and implementation of the models. We're making sure that those models are bespoke to the communities that they come from. We believe that communities know what is best and they set the pace and they are the decision makers.It's important to remember that Oranga Tamariki supports around 50000 children in the community supports them to ensure they stay out of care. I think that's very important. We now have the lowest number of children and young people entering care since 2004 and we have the lowest number of children in care since 2010. In the last four years the number of tamariki in care has reduced by over a quarter by over 25 percent and that again is a huge achievement. Of the children that do come into care 78 percent of them are now being placed within whānau and within their own communities.Over the past few years Oranga Tamariki has continued to embed the direction to only use uplifts where there are no other options available to keep children safe and the use of this section of the Act has significantly reduced from 1395 in 2018 to just 430 in 2022.Oranga Tamariki continues to make fundamental changes in its approach to social work practice to better meet the needs of children and families and to allow social workers to work in complementary ways to new iwi- Māori- and community-led approaches. Iwi and Māori organizations received $155 million last year; that was up from just $55 million in 2017. As I said less than two years ago in September of 2021 the future direction plan was launched. It sets a clear direction for the ministry and it charts a multi-year path to shift the approach the operating model and the practice of Oranga Tamariki to be truly tamariki- and whānau-centred.As I have mentioned one of the key planks of the future direction plan is the enabling communities to work and to keep things short that's about communities making the decisions in how they care for their young people. An example is the launch of Te Ara Mātua in Hawke's Bay in April. It's a Ngāti Kahungunu - led approach to support and provide care for tamariki that are living in Hawke's Bay. Again it's about putting resources and decision making in the hands of communities so that they can lead the change and the solutions for their tamariki and whānau. Te Ara Mātua aims to provide services and support to keep tamariki and their whānau out of the Oranga Tamariki system and return those tamariki currently in the system to the protection of whānau hapū and iwi. Another initiative driving the organization's change is the Oranga Tamariki Action Plan and I just spent a bit of time at question time describing some of the highlights from the Oranga Tamariki Action Plan which is one year old. I'll leave it there for now.