Questions on allocation of resources - Children’s Convention from the United Nations

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Question 5(a)

Question 5(b)

Question 5(c)

Please inform the Committee about the “well-being budget” approach and on the measures taken to:

Question 5(a)

Implement a tracking system covering all child-related expenditures in the elaboration of the State budget and to assess the impact of investments for children;

Reply to 5(a)

The Treasury tracks child-related expenditures through the annual budget process.

The first wellbeing budget (2019) had a priority focus (one of five) on improving child wellbeing. A summary of the investments through this priority area are available online.

The Treasury has also committed to developing a child wellbeing component to its Flexible Living Standards Framework – which represents the Treasury’s perspective on what matters for New Zealanders’ wellbeing, now and into the future – in 2021.

Question 5(b)

Ensure public participation, including children, in the preparation of local and national budgets;

Reply to 5(b)

New Zealand has well established processes for civic engagement in investment of public funds. At the broadest level this involves free and fair elections. The public can also submit to Parliament on the Budget Policy Statement.

The national Budget process is not consulted on publicly, however, the CYWS and its outcomes and priorities were used to assess Budget bids for the 2020 Budget process. Significant consultation with children and young people was undertaken to ensure this group were directly involved in the development of the CYWS, supporting children’s indirect involvement in the 2020 national Budget.

For local budgets, officials are working with local councils to co-design resources and guidance to help local councils embed the CYWS framework into their broader strategies and business planning, including budget allocation. This will enhance public participation in these processes.

Question 5(c)

Ensure that children, in particular those in vulnerable situations, are not affected by regressive measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential consequences of the economic crisis triggered by those measures.

Reply to 5(c)

In response to COVID-19, the Government has run a deficit, while maintaining existing government service provision and providing additional support for those most affected. This enabled the Government to increase expenditure to support New Zealand businesses through the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy and other substantial income support measures. Expenditure on COVID-19 measures was initially funded from increased debt. In December 2020, the Government increased the marginal tax rate for high income earners, in part to manage increased debt in the long term. This measure increased the progressivity of the tax system.

Income Support Measures

In response to COVID-19 in 2020, MSD implemented several rapid changes to the income support system to better support people (including children) affected by the public health response and its economic impact. These include:

a permanent $25 per week increase to all main benefits
a wage subsidy to help maintain employment for affected businesses
the COVID-19 Leave Payment to support people who had the virus or had to self-isolate (including caregivers of dependants who had the virus or had to self-isolate)
the temporary doubling of the Winter Energy Payment for winter 2020
the COVID-19 Income Relief Payment to support people who had lost employment due to COVID-19 and the public health response
operationally increasing the maximum amount available to meet emergency food costs by $400.

The Child Poverty Report

The Child Poverty Report, released each year as part of the Budget process, is one way in which the Government takes account of the impact of major events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest Child Poverty Report was released with the 2020 Budget.

COVID-19 Support for Youth

Young people have been significantly affected by the uncertainty of COVID-19 in terms of employment, accommodation or having their normal support systems impacted throughout lockdown. A programme of work is underway to ensure there is psychosocial support available to youth (in ways that young people expressed they want to access support).

A Social Impacts Evidence Agenda Working Group has been formed to help identify emerging strategic policy priorities and evidence needs for different business areas across MSD, relating to the social impacts of COVID-19 and the associated economic downturn. As part of this, research will be undertaken to better understand the impact COVID-19 has had on young people to inform the development of further actions for the Youth Plan 2020-2022: Turning Voice into Action – Rebuilding and Recovering, which was launched on 29 July 2020.

COVID-19 support for Māori and Pacific young people

The Pacific Health COVID-19 Response is a subset of the COVID-19 Health and Disability System Response Plan and aims to achieve equitable health outcomes for Pacific people in New Zealand in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes ensuring the rights and health needs of Pacific people, including children and young people are addressed.

Health services provided in secondary schools have prioritised responding to Māori and Pacific students.

COVID-19 support for families, including disabled children

Carer Support and Individualised Funding services introduced more flexibility so that families and whānau could access disability supports during lockdown. For example, families could purchase items that would provide them with respite such as weighted blankets, or fidget toys for their disabled children to help them to sleep or reduce anxieties.

The Government is working to ensure the complex health and social needs of young people in the custody of Oranga Tamariki are met, particularly if the need for Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) arises.

During all levels of the COVID-19 response, the Courts remained operational as an essential service, at a reduced level. Triaging was put into effect to ensure that matters requiring immediate intervention were still heard in a timely way (such as care and protection applications and family violence related care of children applications). Public-facing guidance was updated at each of the alert levels to ensure that plain English information around the requirements was available to parents and caregivers. At Alert Level 4 the Principal Family Court Judge also issued guidance on children in shared care pursuant to Family Court orders. MOJ also provided a range of other information on its website:

Chief Victims’ Advisor – Support available for victims during isolation,
Family and Sexual Violence Helplines,
Q+A for shared parenting in Alert Level 4 that was on the website during level 4, which also had a high number of hits during this time.

New Zealand’s MIQ system provides information on support for young people in their welcome pack for all returnees to New Zealand. The Procedures for Unaccompanied Children and Young People includes guidance for MIQ staff working with children and young people. This helps ensure that ‘the unique needs of unaccompanied children and young people in managed isolation facilities are identified and accommodated so as to ensure that their rights under relevant legislation, international human rights treaties and guidelines are protected’. This document also notes that all children under 18 fall under the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) Child Protection Policy. [1]

Oranga Tamariki expect that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of children, young people, families, and whānau coming to the attention of Oranga Tamariki and the complexity of needs presenting will increase. Those who require additional support will be responded to effectively by way of:

early support services that draw on community networks and strengths
intensive response services to keep children at higher risk of harm safely living with their usual caregivers wherever possible, or to be cared for by extended family, whānau, hapū or iwi
transition support services for young people who are about to leave, or who have left care that are flexible and responsive to the changing employment environment, potentially providing more support to some and to a larger group of young people than previously anticipated.

As part of the all-of-government response to COVID-19, the Government has also formed ‘Caring for Communities’ (C4C), a group of Senior Public Servants including Chief Executives and their officials. The group acts as an intermediary group to support agencies, regions, and communities by working together across Government to ensure an effective system-wide response to issues as they arise. The group has worked with non-government and community providers and informal networks to ensure rapid and ongoing support for at-risk children and young people. To specifically support Māori, Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) – the Ministry of Māori Development has a focus on Māori children through regional networks within the C4C work.

The prioritisation framework for the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine, once available, will take an equity approach to delivery and consider the rights of all children as part of this approach.

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