Oranga Tamariki says it looked at underspending by providers, and matched their performance against each contract. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Oranga Tamariki (OT) is defending its funding cuts to service providers supporting vulnerable children, youth and families, insisting that it is a re-prioritisation of funding and that services will not be affected.
The contracts of 190 providers will be discontinued, and more than 142 providers will have funding reduced.
In the 2024 financial year, the agency contracted $577 million across 554 providers, but in the 2025 financial year, OT has initiated contracting for a minimum of $438 million - with the rest to be finalised over the next six months.
Spokesperson Darrin Haimona said the changes were part of an annual review.
Haimona said the review looked at underspending by providers, and matching their performance against each contract.
"In previous years, some providers have been able to accumulate significant surpluses and this is unacceptable. Every cent of funding we give providers needs to be reaching the children and young people for which it was intended, not sitting idle in the individual bank accounts of providers,
"We are determined to improve the efficiency of our contracted services to better meet the needs of children and families who come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki," he said.
Haimona said the changes will not affect the level or quality of services provided to children, youths and families.
"Even when we're reducing funding in one area, or discontinuing a service, we are re-investing that money straight back into the pool for services, so no money at all is being lost from the community or the services that children need," he said.
Haimona said OT has committed at least $500 million in service contracts for the next financial year.
Oranga Tamariki out of touch with frontline - providers
An organisation supporting vulnerable children and families said Oranga Tamariki did not understand the realities of frontline social workers.
Family Start in Nelson, Tasman, Marlborough has said its organisation is set to lose almost 40 percent of frontline staff as OT reduces its funding.
It is currently funded for 12.75 equivalent full time social workers on the frontline, and 3.1 equivalent full time staff to supervise the programme, but they will be reduced to funding for 10 full time staff after the changes.
Oranga Tamariki said the organisation has achieved on average 80 percent of the whanau volumes, and lower numbers of home visits than expected.
Family Start manager Rebecca Ravenscroft said that was not a fair representation of their work, as working with vulnerable families took a lot of effort which was not shown in the numbers.
"If a whanau worker is on 12 intense whanau, those stats that they're showing you are gonna be lower, because they have less families, that's not a fair representation, that's why we sit with full case load [but] it looks like we're at 80 percent.
"But a whanau worker may be down a case because they have such an intense case load, it's not showing people the full picture of what goes on," she said.
Ravenscroft said they were already underfunded, and losing more funding will mean that 50 families will lose support from them.
She said OT was damaging its relationship with community providers.
"We're catching some of these babies before they fall through the net and end up at OT, they should be communicating with us they should be collaborating, we should be working together.
"Whereas this feels like we're having the finger pointed at us, and told you guys aren't doing a very good job, slice slice slice, doesn't matter that 50 whanau now have got no support," she said.
Nikki Hurst from the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services said OT's characterization of wasted resources and under-utilisation of services was untrue.
"The reality for us, that we're seeing in frontline is ever increasing need, growing waitlists and incredibly hardworking, committed frontline people," she said.
Hurst questioned OT's capacity to accurately evaluate service providers.
"When I contrast it to the report that came out from the independent children's monitor just last week, saying that Oranga Tamariki don't have the system in order to resource or monitor their own practices, I'm really, really struggling to understand how they feel like they can monitor or evaluate our practices,
"We know that in the mix of people who have not been re-contracted.. .the reality is everyone has really high quality evaluation, everyone is more than meeting the targets, and it just feels like a really inaccurate characterization of the reality," she said.
