Getting rid of weeds: Govt looks for savings from Oranga Tamariki contracts while spending more on dealing to Caulerpa
Children’s Minister Karen Chhour is aiming to weed out the duds among external service providers at Oranga Tamariki who – all up – account for total contracts valued at more than $500 million.
For too many years Oranga Tamariki has been the cash cow for community service providers who said they would provide services, “and then don’t”, she says.
Her ACT Party colleague, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard, meanwhile is pouring another $10 million of government money into efforts to contain and remove exotic Caulerpa seaweed.
“This is new investment on top of the $5 million boost earlier this year for an urgent work programme to rapidly develop technology to locate exotic Caulerpa and get rid of it where possible,” Hoggard said.
The taxpayers who are stumping up for this may well ask whether the money spent on the assault on Caulerpa is being scrutinised as closely as the money spent on Oranga Tamariki.
The question is raised when Hoggard says:“
“We acknowledge it is a challenge because exotic Caulerpa spreads easily, and no other country has been able to adequately control or eradicate it at the scale it is here.”
So – Mission Impossible?
Or what?
The two ministerial weeding initiatives are recorded today on the Government’s official website –
“This is new investment on top of the $5 million boost earlier this year for an urgent work programme to rapidly develop technology to locate exotic Caulerpa and get rid of it where possible,” Hoggard said.
The taxpayers who are stumping up for this may well ask whether the money spent on the assault on Caulerpa is being scrutinised as closely as the money spent on Oranga Tamariki.
The question is raised when Hoggard says:“
“We acknowledge it is a challenge because exotic Caulerpa spreads easily, and no other country has been able to adequately control or eradicate it at the scale it is here.”
So – Mission Impossible?
Or what?
The two ministerial weeding initiatives are recorded today on the Government’s official website –
Latest from the Beehive
7 August 2024
After years of allowing money to slide through the cracks Oranga Tamariki is finally taking financial control of its funding for external service providers, says Children’s Minister Karen Chhour.
Efforts to contain and remove exotic Caulerpa seaweed have received a $10 million funding injection to drive the ongoing development of new tools and techniques, says Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today announced a refreshed board for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to ensure that the organisation is focussed on delivery.
6 August 2024
Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka has acknowledged the Māori Trustee and Te Tumu Paeroa for 100 years of protecting whenua for future generations.
In her announcement, Karen Chhour explained that this year she asked Oranga Tamariki to make sure the hundreds of service providers having their contracts reviewed “were properly assessed. Line by line.”
She said:
“Their challenge has been to unpick years of complacency and lack of rigour in the way contracts have been managed. These contracts are valued at more than $500 million.
“I have pushed the Oranga Tamariki senior management team to look for every opportunity to focus its funding on the care and protection of the children it is responsible for.
“For too many years Oranga Tamariki has been the cash cow for community service providers who say they will provide services, and then don’t.”
There had been no reduction in frontline services. Chhour insisted.
“Oranga Tamariki is simply funding those who do the work, and not those who don’t.
“Oranga Tamariki’s service providers are expected to regularly report back about the work they do, and the children in care they work with.
“The funding they provide is for the care and protection of children in state care. Nothing more, nothing less.
“That’s what New Zealanders want their dollars spent on, and that’s what they are getting, finally.”
We must wait and see whether Chhour’s weeding exercise results in improved care and protection of children in state care.
But let’s note the thrust of an RNZ report earlier today:
A Nelson-based organisation that supports the most vulnerable tamariki and their whānau across the top of the South Island is set to lose almost 40 per cent of its frontline staff, as Oranga Tamariki reduces its funding.
The service is funded by Oranga Tamariki and gets referrals from health professionals and other organisations, who have concerns about a child’s wellbeing.
RNZ referred to a report by Oranga Tamariki in 2021 which found participation in the Family Start programme was estimated to have reduced overall post-neonatal mortality in the first year of life by 42 percent.
The service has a main office in Nelson, with branches in Motueka, Takaka and Blenheim. Whānau workers currently support 184 families, including in isolated areas such as Bainham, Murchison and Seddon. Twelve of the families come from a refugee background where communication can be difficult.
Karen Chhour would not comment to RNZ on individual provider contracts, but maintained the government had not reduced front line services.
She said Oranga Tamariki was replacing its contracts with more efficient, consistent, and cost-effective arrangements and estimates it could recover $30m from providers because of under-delivery of services.
Andrew Hoggard – in his announcement about more money being spent on dealing with the exotic Caulerpa – agreed it spreads easily and acknowledged that no other country has been able to adequately control or eradicate it at the scale it is here.
“However, we know affected communities want to continue the battle against this challenging problem and there have been some promising technology developments that we would like to push further.
“This additional $10 million will keep the momentum going in improving the technology and tools that we have identified and will also be used to help slow the spread of Caulerpa.”
Hoggard says the new work programme will build on what has been learned from the first phase of work, which showed that removing exotic Caulerpa is achievable, but it is not easy.
“The $3.3 million large-scale mechanical suction dredging project in Omakiwi Cove in Northland made some significant advances but found that achieving fast and cost-effective removal is still challenging and further research and development is required.
“One of the other projects, developing new surveillance and removal technologies, saw the successful development of cameras mounted on towed and remote-operated vehicles to find exotic Caulerpa and identify it as Caulerpa in real time using artificial intelligence.
“We are also aware of other promising technology developments that have been self-initiated by iwi, communities, scientists and others.
“All this effort needs to be built on and, while we have a seriously difficult problem with exotic Caulerpa, there is some cause for optimism,” Mr Hoggard says.
The additional funding will focus on technology development and trials to test these new tools. The trials will be for removal at some high value and/or high-risk locations.
An Exotic Caulerpa National Advisory Group has been formed recently and Biosecurity New Zealand officials will work with this group to help prioritise use of the funding allocation, as well as working on the options to consider for ongoing management of Caulerpa in New Zealand.
Point of Order learned more about the weed from the NIWA website, which in 2022 posted an item headed:
Marine invader Caulerpa triggers biosecurity response
This says NIWA is part of a multi-agency biosecurity response to the invasive seaweed discovered at Great Barrier Island and subsequently at Great Mercury Island.
It draws attention to the role of “iwi partners” (and to providing them with obvious employment opportunities):
“A tangata whenua representative is on board the vessel every time the team is at work diving at Aotea (Great Barrier Island)”.
Moreover, marine ecologist Irene Middleton is quoted as saying tangata whenua “have provided technical advice to the response team during the operations and have ensured the team remained safe by advising on local tikanga”.
We would like to hear more about the “technical advice” the team has been given and about the safety measures they presumably would not have taken without iwi guidance.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
1 comment:
$500Milliion!!! Given the majority cohort causing the need for this expense, ought not the lion's share of this annual expediture be used to offset any remaining Treaty settlements, or certainly used to offset whatever might be calculated as additonal top-up payment due as a consequence of the growth in the originally agreed settlement envelope?
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