The need for greater oversight
In 2015 an Expert Advisory Panel report on Modernising Child, Youth and Family, recommended greater oversight of New Zealand’s child protection system. A subsequent 2017 review of independent oversight arrangements for the Oranga Tamariki system and children’s issues, including the 2018 post-consultation Beatie report, led to our initial establishment in 2019 as a business unit of the Ministry of Social Development (
). Our role at that time was to monitor compliance with the National Care Standards Regulations, which took effect in 2019.On 1 May 2023, the Oversight of the Oranga Tamariki System Act took effect, widening our monitoring role to the whole of the oranga tamariki system. We left MSD and became a departmental agency.