Editorial: CYF remedy urgent for our children

One area of concern stood out from the multitude when a damning review of Child, Youth and Family was released last month. The agency, it was found, had a culture resistant to change. That conclusion, more than any other, explained why CYF has swallowed up repeated million-dollar funding boosts without that money significantly improving the way it operated. It also confirmed that the agency's woes would not be solved simply by pouring in more cash, no matter how compelling the case for additional resourcing appeared. A culture change must be the top priority. And that is why the resignation of Jackie Pivac, the CYF chief executive, represents such a golden opportunity.

In effect, Ms Pivac's departure can act as a circuit-breaker. A new chief executive can introduce new ideas, new expectations and a new sense of purpose. Given the shortcomings of the present culture, that person must come from outside CYF. It is to be hoped that the Prime Minister is thinking along those lines in suggesting the agency is in need of a shake-up.

That sentiment has been expressed before, never more so than after a report in 2001 by former Chief Youth Court Judge Mick Brown that identified an array of woes, including low staff morale, poor training of social workers, huge under-funding and, perhaps worst of all, skewed decision-making. Judge Brown, as well as dissecting the ailment, offered commonsense remedies. Yet a new directions programme based largely on his recommendations has not improved CYF's performance to any significant degree. Nor has what amounts to a 50 per cent increase in baseline funding between 1999 and 2002.

For that, senior CYF management must accept much of the blame. Pointedly, the minister responsible for Child, Youth and Family refused to express confidence in Ms Pivac when the review - carried out by the Treasury, CYF, the State Services Commission and the Social Development Ministry - was released. Government praise on the occasion of her resignation was also muted. But all in all there is little to suggest that Ms Pivac was, as Opposition MPs contend, a "sacrificial lamb". That could be so only if the review's criticism had been ill-directed.

Logic does not suggest that, even if there might be cause to quibble with one or two of the findings. The emphasis, for example, on "critical information gaps" and, in particular, CYF's inability instantly to come up with the number of children in its care. It is understandable that this might not have been a major focus for an agency which, in its own words, was running a skeleton operation because it did not have the funding to meet an upsurge in notifications of at-risk children. When priorities were established, the welfare of those children should have been given top billing. Quite rightly, less attention would have been paid to having overall operation statistics at the ready.

Nonetheless, the problems at CYF ran far deeper than a matter of priority. It is reasonable to point the finger at the agency's culture, and at a lack of management focus. Remedying that culture and orchestrating an acceptable level of performance are daunting challenges. There will be obstacles aplenty. Always there will be irresponsible parents, such as those who allowed young children to live in a Hamilton apartment being used as a methamphetamine laboratory. And always there will be issues of funding, despite the latest 12.5 per cent, or $127 million, boost announced by the Government.

Additionally, unrealistic expectations will sometimes be heaped on CYF. Not so unrealistic, however, as to excuse the agency's underperformance since its establishment in 1999. Opportunities to enact fundamental, and comprehensive, change come along all too rarely. For the sake of at-risk children, this one must be taken.