Government to review $1.3b in family and sexual violence spending

Sunday, 15 December 2024

The Government will review $1.3 billion in family and sexual violence funding as it aims a new cross-agency plan at doing “fewer things and doing them well”.

Minister for Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Karen Chhour announced the new Te Aorerekura Action Plan on Sunday morning, alongside Social Development Minister Louise Upston and Police Minister Mark Mitchell at an event attended by about 50 people in Auckland.

The second five-year “action plan” for the 25-year strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence, begun in 2021 by the prior Labour Government, was a reflection of the new Government’s more-targeted “social investment” approach.

“This plan is focused on government prioritising fewer things and doing them well,” Chhour said, in a foreword to the new plan.

But Labour Party prevention of family and sexual violence spokesperson Ginny Andersen said the Government was narrowing the focus without reporting on whether the prior plan’s actions had been completed.

“It's a continual whittling down what's being made available,” Andersen said.

The former plan had the various government agencies involved focused on six “shifts”, such as “towards strength-based wellbeing” and “mobilising communities”, with specific actions.

The new plan has seven focus areas, such as “protecting children and young people”, of which three would be the focus in the coming two years: “investing and commissioning well”, “keeping people safe”, and “stopping violence”.

The plan said the Government’s new Social Investment agency would help review the $1.3b spent on family and sexual violence services and initiatives in June 2016.

The Government would review existing contracts with providers to identify “opportunities for greater alignment across contracts and pilot an outcomes-based contracts“.

The interventions for people who are violent will also be reviewed, and the Government’s promised stalking legislation has been included in the plan.

“When we're talking about investment, it doesn't necessarily always mean money,” Chhour said, at the event.

Some iwi and hapu have asked for more information about their families to work for them, she said.

Another focus was creating an “effective multi-agency response” to violence, through gathering up agencies including Oranga Tamariki, police, Corrections, and the Minister of Social Development, to create plans to improve collaboration in six regions of the country.

“What we see works in a regional response, and what's been working well, is when agencies all come together within that region … they work together around a family and their family's needs,” Chhour said.

“If we can get that co-ordination right regionally … it sets up the framework for what it could look like nationally, across the board, we just need to make sure that we're getting that right.”

Chhour said the whole of Parliament was committed to ending family and sexual violence, so she was confident the plan would continue regardless of the Government.

Upston said the social investment approach would better prioritise investments to produce a positive impact.

“A big part of what we are doing is making sure that what we fund, we are measuring, we're gathering data, and we are deliberately making decisions about purchasing services that we know work.

“While it would be nice to say that is the case for all funding at the moment, it's a clear commitment in terms of improvements to commissioning that we get there.

“This is a significant amount of funding that taxpayers fund, and a significant problem.”

Andersen said the prior plan sought to develop a networks of support across the country to “stop people going through the gaps”, and to prevent violence.

But the new plan narrowed down the regions focused on, and showed “desire to spend far less money” on crisis response, instead of prevention.

“The language they're using around social investment indicates there's going to be a reduction in funding.

“So the networks of support aren't established. They're frozen funding. Now they're doing a value for money analysis of what's already funded.”