 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2022 |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Jurisdiction | New Zealand |
| Headquarters | The Aurora Centre 56 The Terrace Wellington 6011 |
| Minister responsible |
|
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | Ministry of Social Development |
| Website | www |
Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People is a government ministry within New Zealand's Ministry of Social Development. Its mission is to improve outcomes for disabled people in New Zealand, reform the wider disability system, and coordinate the Government's disability policies. Whaikaha formally came into existence on 1 July 2022.
Functions and responsibilities
Whaikaha was established with two purposes; lead a true partnership between the disability community, Māori and Government; and help transform the disability system in line with the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) approach. Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People purports to do things differently to other ministries by meeting their obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is an acknowledgement by the Ministry of the distinct views of disabled peoples in pre-colonial Aotearoa. The Ministry aims to change the relationship between disabled people and the government to one that fosters the success of individuals and recognises that they are not people in need of being ‘fixed’.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership is fundamental to the establishment of Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People instead of the UNCRPD or accessibility provisions, it is clear through its being core to the whakapapa of the organisation. The key principles which the Ministry aims to give effect to, instead of a rights based approach, are;
- Kāwanatanga: Partnership and shared decision-making.
- Rangatiratanga: Protection, revitalisation and development of taonga.
- Rite tahi: Equity, participation and equality and non-discrimination.
History
Background
On 29 October 2021, Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni and Minister of Health Andrew Little announced that the New Zealand Government would establish a new Ministry for Disabled People within the Ministry of Social Development to reform the country's disability support system and improve outcomes for disabled people. Sepuloni justified the creation of the new ministry on the grounds that the current disability system in New Zealand had "broken down" and that consolidating these services within a single agency would improve disabled people's outcomes.
The proposed disability ministry and legislative framework were welcomed by Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero, Te Ao Mārama chair Tristram Ingham, New Zealand Disability Support Network chief executive Peter Reynolds, and the Green Party's disability spokesperson Jan Logie. Disabled Person Assembly chief executive Prudence Walker welcomed the Government's efforts to prioritise the needs of disabled people but expressed concerns about funding and the need for disabled leadership of the new entity.
Launch
On 19 May 2022, the Government allocated NZ$108 million from the 2022 New Zealand budget to establishing the new ministry. Sepuloni stated that the new ministry would be responsible for leading and coordinating strategic disability policy across the New Zealand Government, reforming the wider disability system, and improving disabled outcomes in the areas of employment, education, health and wellbeing.
On 1 July 2022, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni and Minister for Disability Issues Poto Williams formally launched the new government department as Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People. During the official launch, it was confirmed that Whaikaha would be the first government department with names in the country's three official languages: English, Māori, and New Zealand Sign Language. They also confirmed that the organisation's chief executive would be a disabled person. Since the candidate was unavailable due to personal circumstances, Geraldine Woods was designated as the interim chief executive. Williams was also designated as the Minister responsible for the new organisation. Whaikaha also assumed the functions formerly delivered by the Ministry of Health's Disability Directorate. It was also tasked with reforming New Zealand's disability system in line with the Government's Enabling Good Lives (EGL) approach.
Paula Tesoriero was announced as the first chief executive of Whaikaha on 30 August 2022 and is the first disabled person to lead a New Zealand public service department.
2024 respite care cutbacks
In September 2023 the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand, including Grant Robertson took a close look at the Ministry of Disabled People - Whaikaha and found severe financial mismanagement problems. They learnt that Whaikaha had serious financial and system issues, even when being run from and sharing the back office services of the Ministry of Social Development, MSD, and that the ministry did not have a robust plan or the resources to fix the issues it's facing. This information was never released publicly at the time and the incoming government was not informed of it until December 2023. In March 2024, the Ministry of Disabled People abruptly announced that it would reduce disability respite care funding to services covering the needs of disabled people only as it was originally intended to. Disability Issues Minister Penny Simmonds said funding was set to run out in "days", although funding issues were known by the Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand at the time further back then July 2023. This is due to the 2023 budget never allocating for the full amount of allocated respite funding and ministry operation as had been identified in the government review in September 2023. Penny Simmonds said the National-led coalition government was not going release emergency funding for disabled people and their families in addition to the 2023 allocation as the budget for such was set back in 2023 and there was not available funding left.
On 20 March, Simmonds said Whaikaha had done an inadequate job in conveying changes to disabled people's funding. She also questioned how the money has been spent and suggested some families were wasting their funding on “massages, overseas travel and pedicures”, with many disabled families speaking up that they used the funding for carer accommodation in hotels outside of the home as holiday stays when they were not needed in caring for disabled family members and many using it for personal costs, personal grooming, household assets not required for disability care or needs support, personal services and shopping items for carers instead of for the care and respite of disabled clients; costs that should have been covered by the carers themselves. This is as carers legally agreed they knew about respite funding being solely for the immediate medical care and direct living needs of the disabled person when accepting the funding and that it did not cover personal services for carers, holidays or any assets of a household outside of direct disability care needs. Those costs should have been covered by the carers own funds or from their own support services, e.g. insurance, not drawn from the disabled persons account without their full consent & breaching their funding guidelines. This fraud however was openly stated in media articles as accepted uses by many prominent families. As identified in the Sept 2023 report the ministry did not have the required financial management to track respite funding spending, audit it, or even reclaim the money even when the fraud breaches had names attached publicly in articles.The changes have caused concern within the disabled community as it would slow down and potentially invoke inspection of the ongoing requests for remuneration of invoiced respite costs (excluding contracted carer pay hours). In addition many family carers felt they had a right to claim their own personal costs against a disabled person's respite fund and cutting off the fraud invoked outrage in losing a potential source of false income. With many parents misusing funds allocated for their children's living needs and in many cases denying adult children's voice, agency and choice in care costs spent. This also meant that requests for new funding for respite care, (e.g. growing increased needs of care due to rapid deterioration), would also need to follow stricter guidelines and checks by needs assessment services. In addition requests for use of respite funding for items outside of direct needs and funding equipment costs (which are covered in other funding channels), would be further limited and inspected.
A petition opposing the changes attracting more than 10,000 signatures in 24 hours. In response to criticism, Minister of Finance Nicola Willis summoned Ministry officials and Simmonds for an urgent briefing, after disabled people and their families were blindsided by news of closer inspection and restrictions to allocated respite care. Willis said that news came as a surprise, and she had not been told how dire the situation was before news broke.
On 26 March 2024, Willis announced that future decisions about the Ministry's funding would go to the New Zealand Cabinet to be signed off, with the disabled community being consulted. Willis criticised the previous Labour Government for allegedly allowing the Ministry to overspend for several years. The opposition Labour Party described the new decision-making directive as a "massive vote of no confidence" in Simmonds's role as Disability Issues Minister.
2024 spending controversy
In mid April 2024, disability advocate Jane Carrigan called on the Auditor-General to investigate the Ministry after it spent nearly NZ$10 million on hiring contractors and consultants. In response to Newshub's report, the Ministry said that it was a new agency and needed to hire contractors to fill temporary roles while building the organisation. Disability Issues Minister Penny Simmonds confirmed that the Government would conduct a review of disability support services in New Zealand. In late April 2024, The New Zealand Herald obtained a confidential briefing to the-then Finance Minister Grant Robertson from September 2023 detailing the Ministry's problems. Key problems included the rapid transfer of functions, responsibilities and personnel from the Ministry of Health to the new ministry, poor financial management and monitoring capabilities, ageing IT infrastructure and business practices, and workforce shortages (with 97 vacant positions in September 2023). While the Ministry for Disabled People now had a new operational model to match its mandate, its operational budget did not meet the NZ$2.2 billion needed for its operational functions.
Restructuring
On 15 August 2024, the Disabilities Issues Minister Lousie Upston announced that the Ministry would be restructured as a policy and advisory government department and that its support service delivery functions would be assumed by the Ministry of Social Development. Disabled Persons Assembly chief executive and former Green Party MP Mojo Mathers, disability advocate Blake Forbes-Gentle, CCS Disability Action national policy analyst Phoebe Eden-Mann and Green Party disability spokesperson Kahurangi Carter criticised the government's restructuring decision, saying that it would adversely affect the ability of disabled people to access support services due to MSD's poor track record of serving the disabled community. Even though the Green Party was instrumental in the government from 2017-2023 Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand, responsible for deliberate denial of pay equity for disabled carers , deliberate denial of recommended changes to MSD to improve service access during their term in government, removal of access provisions in housing & public spaces and a significant factor in causing the failure of meaningful accessibility legislation.
Notes and references
- ^ Sepuloni, Carmel; Little, Andrew (29 October 2021). "Government delivers transformative changes for disabled people". Beehive.govt.nz. New Zealand Government. Archived from the original on 6 November 2021. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
- ^ Neilson, Michael (1 July 2022). "Government launches Ministry of Disabled People; CEO to be disabled person". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 1 July 2022. Retrieved 2 July 2022.
- ^ "Who we are". www.whaikaha.govt.nz. Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People. Retrieved 20 June 2023.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
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