Social Investment Agency chief executive Andrew Coster. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
In light of a damning report into contracting processes by Oranga Tamariki, the head of the Social Investment Agency says it's looking to allow for a more streamlined approach for organisations to access funding, "freeing up" resource for more delivery.
Andrew Coster told RNZ the Social Investment Agency could allow for a separation of Oranga Tamariki's responsibilities when it came to providing preventative services as opposed to its statutory role for the care of children.
On Thursday, the Office of the Auditor General criticised Oranga Tamariki for the way it abruptly axed contracts last year for social services helping vulnerable children and their families.
The report was released the same day Finance Minister Nicola Willis unveiled a new $190 million Social Investment Fund designed to transform the way the social services are delivered to vulnerable New Zealanders.
The fund would be governed by the new Social Investment Agency and was expected to invest in at least 20 initiatives in its first year.
The first three initiatives to receive support from the fund were an Autism NZ early intervention scheme, an Emerge Aotearoa youth offending programme, and a Te Tihi o Ruahine programme supporting families in need.
Willis said the fund would scale up over time, taking over contracts currently secured by government agencies. The government currently spends about $7b a year on social services from non-government agencies.
Speaking to RNZ's Nine to Noon, Coster said this would take time to scale up, but the intention is have a conversation with organisations about "contract consolidation."
"The opportunity here is for providers to engage with the Fund for a conversation about contract consolidation that if approved, [sic] in terms of ministers agreeing, that money can be moved into the fund will enable us to change their contractual arrangements."
He said organisations working "holistically with families" at the moment often had many contract with many different agencies.
"So they're sort of forced to respond to a very fragmented and siloed way of contracting with government to be able to support families, and many of those contracts are very prescriptive."
In time he said, this would be an opportunity for some organisations to bring "many contract arrangements into a single outcomes based contract, which will be quite transformational in terms of their activity and/ or their ability to focus on the family."
Coster said some providers report spending 20 or 30 percent of their effort on contract management and securing contracts.
"So the business of reporting, which is very onerous at the moment - overly so - and the business of ensuring that they've got funding to continue their operations, is very consuming.
"So that movement into a single arrangement will also represent a real freeing up of resource to do more delivery."
He said the Auditor-General's report reflected a general lack of insight across social service commissioning "as to the actual outcomes that are coming from our work."
He said government funding that could move toward the new Investment Fund would be money that's working with families early to prevent them coming into the care system in the first place.
"The judgement will be what funding is tightly tied to Oranga Tamariki's daily activities, which might be providing care for a child who is unable to be in their home, versus the funding that is about achieving enduring results to support children to thrive, rather than being at risk of coming into the care system."
When asked if there could be a separation of Oranga Tamariki's responsibilities for providing preventative services and its statutory role for the care of children, Coster said "that's right."
"And you can apply that principle across other areas as well to understand what a sensible division might be between the fund and agency."
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