55596 (2024). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Minister for Children

55596 (2024). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Minister for Children: How many, if any, children and young persons were waiting for Oranga Tamariki to allocate them to a social worker as of June 2024?

Hon Karen Chhour: Corrected reply: I have interpreted your question to refer to the number of children whose cases were outside of the determined response timeframe for overdue to being allocated to a care and protection social worker. I am advised by Oranga Tamariki that on 26 June 2024, there were 1723 children whose cases were overdue to be allocated to a care and protection social worker. I am further advised that Oranga Tamariki has recently had a significant focus on safely reducing this volume. As at 27 August 2024, the number of children whose cases were overdue to be allocated to a care and protection social worker was had been reduced to 1132. I am further advised that Oranga Tamariki has measures in place to monitor where cases that are yet to be allocated, including triaging these for urgency, monitoring unallocated queues, and reaching out to notifiers (those who make a report of concern) to seek updates when needed.