A scathing review of $1.1 billion given to Oranga Tamariki

The Herald reports:

Treasury gave the Government a scathing review of its $1.1 billion investment in Oranga Tamariki in the 2019 Budget, calling the spend a “disparate collection of ideas” that was “not governed by a clear organisational strategy“.

Sounds like the Government!

In the first Wellbeing Budget, the Government invested $1.1 billion over four years into Oranga Tamariki to transform the organisation.

As part of that funding, Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis was meant to report back to Cabinet on whether any transformation had taken place every six months.

The first report was back in April 2021, but the papers released under the Official Information Act say that “from… Treasury’s perspective” the report itself “did not meet the expectations Cabinet set”.

The next report was due at the end of the year. Once again, Treasury felt the report itself was sub par, and underplayed issues at the agency.

Treasury papers and correspondence show the agency was scathing about the lack of progress.

“This will be the second report back Cabinet receives, and while it is a significant improvement on the first, some key issues remain,” the papers say.

They add that Treasury had to second short-term staff to the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki to “provide financial expertise”.

Treasury was concerned Davis’ original Cabinet paper had “not adequately addressed” the “key issues” of Oranga Tamariki’s lacklustre performance.

So taxpayers put $1.1 billion into OT to transform it, and the Minister didn’t want to tell his colleagues that basically it was a waste of money, so he glossed over it.

One report from Treasury highlighted that Oranga Tamariki did not have “effective fiscal controls” – controls on how money was spent effectively.

The report said Oranga Tamariki did not have the “necessary reporting and accountability systems in place, to ensure spending is high value and within budget”.

It said that “[s]ignificant decisions are frequently made before funding is in place, such as raising expectations with partners regarding contracts for services, or hiring permanent staff without ongoing funding for those staff”.

Treasury gave the example of Oranga Tamariki’s leadership deciding to reprioritise $42 million in underspent funding without Cabinet approval.

Because of the way that funding was reprioritised, Oranga Tamariki created an ongoing cost pressure of $20 million each year that would need to be funded in subsequent Budgets.

“OT have not sought Cabinet or joint ministerial approval to re-prioritise this $42 million, and have created an ongoing cost pressure of $20 million into subsequent years directly attributable to these decisions,” the paper said.

This is sackable territory. They spend $42 million without permission. In the private sector you would be sacked or worse.