Measure for measure

The tragedy of child abuse in New Zealand is well-known, as is the frequent failure of state intervention to help much, and sometimes make matters worse. A lot of hope has been put in the new Ministry for Children — Oranga Tamariki — but those whose job is measuring departments’ performance aren’t sure it is off to a great start. The largest spending part of the ministry’s budget is $916 million allocated to “Investing in Children and Young People”. The only performance measure for the “Prevention” output is the percentage of people who feel a sense of responsibility to support children and young people. However, this does not provide any measure of what is to be done with the money. The Ministry rightly argues that it is new, has lots on its plate and is working on meaningful measures that don’t just result in “box-ticking”.