Documents show Oranga Tamariki has has been stumbling towards budget blowouts with loose and patchy financial controls.
Its shortcomings in protecting children have been the subject of more than a dozen inquiries, the most recent last week finding five gaps had contributed to the brutal death of five-year-old Malachi Subecz.
But at the same time, a series of unheralded but also scathing financial reviews of the agency have been unmasking - internally at least - many major, basic failings.
Phil Pennington has been studying the documents.
