Social Workers Registration Bill

I move, That the Social Workers Registration Bill be now read a third time. The key principles of this bill are to provide people with greater protection from the harm that may result from poor social work practice, to enhance the professionalism of social work, and to ensure an investment is made in the people who work in this important occupation. For Dr Newman’s edification, I repeat the phrase “to ensure an investment is made in the people who work in this important occupation”, which means that we have allocated the Department of Child, Youth and Family with funding to ensure that they can make it through to registration.

The bill establishes a regulatory framework for the registration of all social workers. It will be applicable across all sectors where social workers are employed in New Zealand. The bill will improve the quality of social work by requiring that registered social workers are competent and held accountable for their practice. It establishes a system that will provide greater protection to the often vulnerable people who receive services from social workers. People receiving social work support deserve a quality service.

The bill will establish a board to register social workers. The board will be required to promote the benefits of registration of social workers. The employers of social workers, and the public generally, will also be people to whom this concept is promoted. A tribunal will be established to consider complaints against registered social workers, and to manage disciplinary issues.

Under the registration system, only certain people will have the right to use the title “registered social worker”. Only those who have a recognised qualification in social work—and I stress “recognised qualification”—who have enough practical experience, who are judged to be fit and proper people to be in social work, who are competent, and who can practise social work with Māori and different ethnic and cultural perspectives are the kinds of people who will enjoy the “registered social worker” title. The public need to be assured that they can have confidence in people who wield, as many speakers have said, quite considerable power.

This is an enabling rather than prescriptive piece of legislation. A significant amount of detail around registration will, of course, be left to the profession itself, through the board. For example, the profession itself must decide what an appropriate qualification is. Professions have to own the process of registration in their own profession.

A number of submissions were received. A vast majority of submitters supported the intent of this legislation. They were of a view that registration would result in better protection and better safeguards for clients and, can I say, social workers as well. One of the key issues raised by the Social Services Committee was whether registration should be compulsory. Given the shortness of the debate around this bill, we canvassed that issue in the second part of this debate, and people raised it during the Committee stage, so I do not intend to elaborate on it here, save to say that I agree with the view of the House that although mandatory registration is not appropriate at this time, it needs to be constantly revisited by the registration board, to decide when it will be appropriate to move towards a time when perhaps either the term “social worker” is protected, or we have mandatory social work registration. But it is not appropriate to do it right now.

I would certainly like to thank the select committee for all its hard work. It has, I think, produced legislation that will be welcomed by the sector. I would like to thank the sector itself. It has worked for many, many years to get this up and running. It has been closely involved in the registration legislation. I would like to put on the record my thanks to one particular person by the name of Buster Cursonwho has worked with the profession and with the Government right through this process to ensure the liaison has been clear and open and results in good legislation. We now want to ensure that we carry out our promise to social workers that they will move into a professional environment that is good for them, good for the public, and, most of all, good for the clients they serve. I commend the bill to the House.

The National Party gladly votes for the third reading. We think the bill is an important step forward for the social work profession as a whole. However, it is important to inject a bit of reality into the discussion about what this bill will be able to achieve once it is enacted.

We agree with a lot of the comments that the Minister has made. Social workers should work towards the aim of delivering a better quality service, increasing the discipline within the profession, and increasing the protection of those people who use the service, as well as themselves. If members look at all those objectives, they will see that the bill, in its present form, will not be able to enhance the quality of the profession. Certainly, it will not make a difference to the discipline of the profession or increase protection, because this bill states that registration is voluntary. Anybody who does not want to take part and be registered does not have to. I suspect that some of the less professional social workers—some of those more likely not to follow best practice regimes—are less likely to register. I do not think the cowboys of the social work world will go through the process and register. They will just continue to call themselves social workers and, basically, not change their practice considerably.

Yes, the Social Services Committee did a good job with this bill, and I commend the previous chair, Taito Phillip Field. In terms of our side of things, we did our job in a timely fashion, and we listened to a wide range of groups interested in the social work sector. However, I have to say that out of all the advice those groups gave us, and the recommendations they made, this bill took most of their aims and objectives and basically gutted what they were trying to achieve. They asked for the majority of social workers to be required to register. On the first reading of this bill, it was thought that at least State social workers would be asked to register. That, sadly, is not the case. It is the role of Government to be a leader in the social work sector. With nearly 1,000 out of the 10,000 social workers being employed by the Government, or working within some kind of Government agency, it is important the Government works to ensure it is putting the best foot forward for the profession.

At one stage the Government was going to put expectations for registration in place. It had even done the work and taken the recommendations through Cabinet, but some 3 months later the objective to include Child, Youth and Family Services and other social workers from Government agencies was rescinded. That was a real shame. It is a shame the Government did not do its homework to try to find out whether it was realistic prior to putting that in place. Somebody within the ministry did not tell the Minister that the recommendation had gone through Cabinet and been rescinded, because even a few months later he was happily telling the House that he was pleased that the bill would specifically require all social workers carrying out statutory functions to be registered. A certification model was supported by two-thirds of those who participated in the consultation process; that is true. Perhaps it may even understate the support for that particular requirement when it came through the Social Services Committee. So it is a shame.

The pace of this bill has been unreasonably slow. It was supposedly a priority-3 piece of legislation. The aim was to get this bill through by the end of 2001, and here we are years later just ending the third reading now. However, I am glad that at least there is a framework. It is really important that the sector has a framework to enable it to start looking at what the important issues are—that is, the quality of the sector, issues to do with training, and getting the board under way. We will watch with interest to see who the appointments on that board will be. We will want to know that there is a balance on it, and that it will not be just a whole set of political appointments. I am disappointed that Child, Youth and Family Services, being such a significant part of the sector, is not able to put someone on that board. It is a shame that that recommendation, too, was rescinded by the Government. Being such a large employer of social workers, it would have been good to have someone on that board representing that sector.

I suppose that, ultimately, what all of us in this House want to know is where the service will progress from here. As many members in this House will know, we often hear some pretty sad stories from constituents, particularly those dealing with Child, Youth and Family Services, probation, and others areas of social work where things have not got as well as the public expects. Social workers work under immense pressure, and I can see why many have decided to leave the country. Certainly, when we look at their salaries, coupled with the pressure they are under, we can see that their job may not be as rewarding as some other jobs they could potentially spend their time doing. With notifications skyrocketing over the last couple of years, it is important that we address the problems of shortages of social workers.

Social workers are being asked to take much higher caseloads than they had to take previously when we were in Government. The caseloads have increased dramatically in an attempt to get the unallocated case lists down. Those lists are shameful. Certainly, in Southland today, where there are over 200 critical cases, the Minister has to take a long hard look at the service. This is his fourth year of managing Child, Youth and Family Services, and there has been little change. Little progress has been made on unallocated case lists, and still children wait while their files are sent to social workers.

The Mick Brown report, released at the time, was excellent. It made a number of recommendations, but the Government has paid lip service to putting them in place. Of the 57 recommendations made, I understand that between 13 and 15 have been implemented. We will hold the Government to account and work with the social services sector to ensure that we can progress its objectives from here.

I want to acknowledge the contribution made by Katherine Rich and other members who were part of the Social Services Committee, and the work they did to bring this bill to a state where it is favourably recommended to the House—which is more than what I can say for her colleague Nick Smith. As a former Minister of the National Government Cabinet, I would have thought that that member would be a lot more knowledgable than was evident by the way he discredited himself with the sorts of questions he asked. This regime of registration for social workers is something that has been recommended. The sector certainly made it clear that it needed such registration.

I want to congratulate the Minister and this Government, finally, after so many years, on giving the social workers sector in New Zealand something that is quite important and encouraging to it, in terms of what it has been asking for. In particular, it is improving the standards of social work in New Zealand, and I commend the registration regime that is to be set up. The board to be set up will be a Crown entity, appointed by the Minister and the Government, and in monitoring the standards of that board, it is important that the accountability returns to the Minister.

The regime also looks at registration on a voluntary basis. I think that the concept of mandatory registration presented in the various submissions, particularly from different areas of the social workers sector, is an important point. But the wise move in this legislation is to look at what happens over 3 years, and then to have a review. Certainly some of the important evaluations that need to be made can be done in 3 years, particularly with regard to mandatory registration.

The other issue that I thought was quite sensible in this legislation was to ensure that people who practise social work in New Zealand have the qualifications and skills to make the right judgments with regard to the care of children, particularly in ethnic communities. There has been some comment in this Committee stage debate about why we have reference to ethnic communities. If we look at the mix of clientele in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, we see that Māori and Pacific Island communities are truly over-represented. Because of the overwhelming numbers, it is only common sense that that service deals with Māori and Pacific Island communities. Other ethnic communities are also growing, and we also need qualified and competent social workers to work in those areas.

I am very supportive of what is in the bill. It ensures that those who practice do so competently, and that the regime will encourage the standards and improve the quality of decisions made. Finally, I say that this bill is good legislation that is well overdue, and I want to congratulate the Minister and Government on getting it through this House.

New Zealand First supports this bill. It is very important legislation—well overdue, as Taito Philip Field has said—that, appropriately managed, should have a very positive outcome for social workers. It is a step forward for this profession, and it may assist with recruitment and retention of staff, which is something we have a concern with. This increased professionalism will also have a positive effect on the confidence of the many New Zealanders who come into contact with the service and rely on social workers to help them.

Social work, as we all know, has become increasingly complex, and a greater accountability is required in that role. So the setting up of a registration board is a step forward, but it should be representative of all sectors of social workers. The board will also ensure that there is a greater accountability for social workers, which is essential when the decisions that are made impact on the lives of children and their families. New Zealand needs well-trained, well-qualified people in that profession in order to deal with the many challenges required of them, so sufficient resources and support to accompany the new registration system is an absolute necessity. The review element, too, is essential, and 3 years is a timely period for review. New Zealand First looks forward to monitoring the outcomes of the bill, and to having a professional team of social workers in New Zealand working with our children and families.

I am delighted that this bill is finally having its third reading tonight, and that all organisations involved with employing and/or training social workers will now be able to begin working towards the new era with both hope and confidence. As I mentioned earlier today, this bill has been a long time coming, especially from the point of view of people in the profession, as they have been working towards this moment for decades, rather than months or years. I am sure that there will be some quiet celebrations tonight or tomorrow, when people learn that the bill has finally been passed.

Social workers operate at a number of the frontlines of society, where the details of life are cruel, complex, and, all too often, tragic. Social work is a really hard job to do well, and that is exacerbated by the fact that it is one of the professions most vulnerable to public criticism and comment. Working towards the registration of all social workers, with a board ensuring high standards of fitness and competence, is an overdue and acutely necessary step on the road to lifting the capacity of New Zealand social workers. I am the first to acknowledge that the new Act will not, of itself, heal all the wounds within the profession, or eliminate all poor practice overnight. However, I believe that what it will achieve will be a steady improvement in performance and accountability across all social work settings, which will, in the end, benefit all of us in this country, not just those directly affected.

During the third reading debate on this very important bill for social workers, I want to reiterate a couple of points that have already been made. I also want to reflect on some of the comments made by other members who were concerned that the outcome of this bill would be to remove the ability for social workers to be self-regulated. The question that pops into my mind is this: if they are so happy with their present level of registration, why would they be applying to come under something regulatory like the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill, which would provide them with the kind of professional status they hope to get out of this bill?

One of the other members, Mr Smith, talked about the fear of State control over a profession. But I reiterate that the aim of this bill is to establish a professional framework for social work that enhances, rather than dismantles, self-regulation. This bill strengthens that position and gives clout to the term “social worker”. The difference is that, on the one hand, a Youth Court judge is calling for higher standards and, on the other hand, a group of what, at present, are employees are wanting to upgrade to the status of a profession, with limited success, to date, in self-regulating. We do, however, want to acknowledge the very good work of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers, and we want to encourage it in what it has done to date. Obviously, it has contributed to where we find ourselves tonight. The association’s attempt to bring all social workers under the umbrella of some sort of regulatory body is to be commended.

The real need for professional status for social workers reflects the very sad condition that many New Zealand families find themselves in. United Future looks forward to the establishment of a commission for the family to provide a strength-based approach to supporting mums, dads, and their kids, so that the heavy workloads of social workers are reduced. United Future acknowledges the hard work done by social workers, and is happy to support the passing of this bill.

It is a shame that this bill is again being passed under urgency. It is also a shame that it has taken so long for it to be passed, since the original time frame was for it to be a bill that would be handled quickly.

The Minister told us this is a bill that is meant to give greater protection to the people whom social workers support. It is meant to enhance the professionalism of the industry and the competencies within the industry. I remain puzzled at how a bill can provide for increased professionalism and competency, and greater protections for those people who are involved with social workers, given that registration under the bill is voluntary. How can the Minister stand there and say the bill will do this, that, and the other, if registration is voluntary? People can decide not to register, because it is voluntary.

I say to Government members that this bill is a fundamental contradiction in terms. It is a Clayton’s bill that will not achieve the fine things that the Minister claims. It is a bill that will bring State regulation through a politically correct and politically motivated board, because the Minister did not put my mind at rest in the Committee stage. This bill is imposing State regulation on an industry that practises self-regulation.

The Committee heard no evidence of large numbers of people who were complaining about social workers, except for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. But that department is run by the Government, for goodness’ sake! So why is this Government regulating a whole industry—some 10,500 people—when those who were the subject of most of the complaints were the State’s own department of 1,000 people? It just does not make sense. It is for those reasons that the ACT party will not be supporting this bill.

The point is that the regulation of social workers will not achieve the aim of this bill—namely, to try to improve the standards of social work in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. Indeed, Judge Mick Brown’s report brought all this about. He was very concerned about the competencies within the department. He saw poor practice, he saw systemic failure. We as an Opposition highlighted there were 4,000 potential child abuse cases that were unallocated but were being reported on month after month. One day I asked for the duration figures. I wanted to know how long the children, whose cases were critical, had been waiting; how long had very urgent cases been waiting, and so on. The Minister found, to his horror, that some of those children had been waiting for months and months. The longest cases had been waiting for over 18 months to be seen. There were no provisions in the way the department worked to make sure that those children were safe.

When the Minister got the report back from the department, and it showed these dreadful, dreadful figures, he issued a statement to say the figures were wrong. It took him 6 months to get the figures right—through a whitewash system, I presume! The point is, that was blatantly poor practice operating in the department, and it was these sorts of issues that Mick Brown wanted the Government to address.

If we think about the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services we recall that when it originated, family breakdown in this country was relatively minimal. The number of children with high and complex needs was pretty small. The department actually could cope. But the problem is that things have become worse. New Zealand has the highest rate of family breakdown in the OECD—29 percent of our families are broken families. That means those children are far more at risk. That is what is putting the department under pressure. There are a number of cases of high and complex needs. Many members of Parliament will have received the emails from the family in the last couple of weeks, in which it is crying out for support and help, and saying the department will not help them, and the police will not help them until someone is injured. So these people have nowhere to go, because the department is the last port of call.

I say to Government members sitting on the other side of the House that the model of having one agency is now obsolete. The agency needs to be able to work hand in hand with police, health workers, and education workers. So the idea of a one-stop shop, a community-based agency wrapping all those services together is the sort of model that we should be hearing about in this House today, in response to the concerns that Mick Brown raised in his report about competency concerns with the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services.

If in fact we were moving to that sort of model, the ACT party would be very much supportive, because we would see that it was timely and forward-looking, and that it would possibly work extremely well, especially if the police took up more of the forensic work that, we understand, social workers are busy doing. So the social workers are busy investigating, doing forensic work, doing the “removal of children” work, and doing all the stuff that the police should be doing, instead of being able to work with children to make sure they are safe, and work with families to make sure they are safe so that the child can come back home. At the moment, more and more kids are being taken away from their families and they are not being brought back home. The number of children in care is going up month by month, year by year. That is not the best answer for this country, that is not the best answer for these children, and that is not the best that a Government can do.

I can tell the member sitting opposite that a Clayton’s bill that sounds good, feels good, and has all the right buttons, but does nothing, is not the answer. That is why I am so disappointed in the response of this Government to what is the most serious concern this country faces. Every year thousands of children in New Zealand are put at risk, because the agency fails to help them in the way that it would want to if it were better organised, had better practice, or better resources. I do not know what the answer is, but I do know that this bill is not the answer.

If some proper solutions were being presented today, the whole social work profession would suddenly start to feel uplifted, because its members would see that social work is moving in a modern direction. That would be far better than a bill that basically says to the social work profession: “We do not trust you. We are going to put in place to control you all a board that the Minister chooses by himself, with no checks and balances.” What other profession in New Zealand has impositions placed on it in that way by such political intervention? Where are the safeguards for anybody, when that is happening? Where are the safeguards for members of the profession to know that, if they happen to be ACT supporters, or National supporters, that somehow they will not find the weight of the board coming down on them? That is a far-fetched scenario, but it is one that cannot be pushed to one side, when there are no checks and balances in this bill to make sure that the political system does not intrude into that profession.

There are a few other issues that the Minister did not explain to us. Serious concerns were raised during the Committee stage. There is a real worry in the profession that this registration will create an elitism between different sides of the social work profession—those who have qualifications and can be registered, or can afford it, and those who do not. There are compliance cost issues on small businesses that run private provision of social work services, that they may not be able to afford the $14,000 to help their staff become registered, whereas the State will. We have already heard from the Minister that he is going to pull down a big chunk of taxpayers’ dollars in the next Budget to ensure that some of his workers can get registered.

One has to ask whether we need those sorts of compliance costs on an industry that is already absolutely overstretched, to the point where many experienced professional social workers are leaving to seek better opportunities overseas, and to seek better opportunities in other industries. Do we want to impose a whole lot of Government regulation and compliance costs on an industry that was probably doing a pretty reasonable job, except for one particular agency, which, of course, is always going to be the subject of public scrutiny—that is, the agency that is run by the Government itself?

I finish by saying my major concern is the political interference that the Minister did not put to rest. This is a Clayton’s bill, and I am very disappointed that we will not be able to support it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson): National is pleased to support a proper regulatory system for social workers, but it has four quite important concerns about this bill. I am disappointed to repeat the fact that these issues were raised in the Committee stage, and the Minister was unable to respond to any of them.

The first of those issues was raised very ably by one of the most effective advocates for children in this Chamber, Dr Paul Hutchinson. He pointed out that social workers do wield enormous power. They have the capacity literally to make life or death decisions about children. Yet, with those sorts of powers, we would have expected that that group of statutory social workers at least would need registration under this bill, but they do not. We are disappointed about that, and it is something that we think the Minister should have responded to. We think that if people are going to have the power to take children away from their parents, then there needs to be some regulatory control around them. This bill is disappointing, because it does not provide for that.

The second key concern National has about this bill is that it treats the profession of social workers like children, in the classical way of this Government’s nanny State policies. This bill says that the profession of social work, unlike any other profession, will be driven by the Government. Is there any other profession in which the entire board is appointed or dis-appointed—sacked—by a Minister of the Crown? Do lawyers, for instance, which some would accept is a profession, have the Attorney-General appoint the Law Society?

💬 Simon Power: Just the bench.

💬 Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My colleague points out that she appoints the judges, but not the Law Society. I ask the lawyers in the House whether they would accept the Law Society being appointed by the Minister of Justice. No, they would not. They would be up in arms. They would not accept that. Would my own profession, the engineers, accept it? Is the top body that decides the standards and the professional regulation of engineers run by a Minister of the Crown? It would be George Hawkins, and given what he did with the Building Industry Authority I am damned pleased he does not run it. But the law does not allow that. It says it is run by the engineers. If we come to the accountants, or the plumbers, or the electricians, or the doctors, or the nurses—in all of those we trust the profession to elect its own. It is so fundamental to being a profession. It is about a profession setting its standards. It is about a profession disciplining its own members. But what we have here from this Government in this bill is good old nanny State.

The Government does not trust the profession of social workers, and that is a big disappointment, because the truth is this: who set up a system of a standard of ethics and a code for social workers? It has already been done. The Aotearoa – New Zealand Association of Social Workers has done that work. Does this legislation attempt to build on the work that social workers have done for themselves? No, it does not. This bill says that it has to be left to nanny State. Social workers have to set up a statutory authority to do it. We say that is wrong, because we trust professions.

The third area where this party has difficulty with the bill is the costs. The Minister has created a bureaucratic monster here. I do not know why we have to have 200 clauses of very specific, detailed, bureaucratic legislation to govern social workers, yet when it comes to something like my own profession of engineering, and many other professions, it could be done in 40 clauses, a fifth of the number. This is one of the longest professional bills. I ask Mr Taito Phillip Field: how come we need this sort of bureaucracy? Why can we not leave things and trust the profession? Does his Government not understand the sorts of costs it is going to impose on social workers, including my wife, when they go to register?

The other key point is that I asked the Minister during the Committee stage whether he could assure members that the bill for this bureaucratic monster would be paid for by the Crown. No, no, the bill states that every social worker will have to pay a levy every year, not just for registration, but also to pay for the disciplinary process. We all know that the social workers working for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services are stressed, morale is low, and turnover is high. I simply asked the Minister in the chair, the Hon Steve Maharey, whether he could assure me that registered social workers working for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services were not going to have to pay the $200 or $300 a year fee to comply with this bill. The Minister was absolutely silent. Why was he silent? I will tell members why. It is because he is going to bill them for it. We say that is wrong. [Interruption] Will Jill Pettis reassure me that her social workers at the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in Wanganui will not be required to pay the registration fee? Will the Government meet that cost? The silence is deafening.

I wonder whether the Minister, who is sitting in the gallery, would just give me a nod that the department will meet the costs for the social workers who work for Child, Youth and Family Services. I ask the Minister to please give me a nod. He will not. He will not give that reassurance, and that is wrong. We know what happened to the teachers. This sneaky Government made it a requirement for teachers to be registered, then it put the fee up 80 percent. In the last month every teacher in New Zealand has got a nice little bill, and this legislation will do the same thing.

The last area about which I wish to express concern is something that I want to challenge the United Future party on. It is in respect of the sickly political correctness in this bill. Muriel Newman made a substantial contribution to this debate. She pointed out that if we are to make social progress in New Zealand then we have some big issues to ask about our families and how we can better make society hold those families together. I have been right through this bill, but in all the principles and in all the bureaucratic guff I could not find the word “family”—

💬 Dianne Yates: You had 9 long years.

💬 Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I challenge the member opposite to tell me where the word “family” appears. If we are going to deal with some of the social issues in New Zealand, we have the treaty—we have to be culturally appropriate, and have all sorts of political correctness—

💬 Steve Chadwick: Blame the social workers for dysfunctional families—how absurd.

💬 Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I do not, but I say to the member for Rotorua that if we are to get better social outcomes for this country, then we need social workers who understand families. [Interruption] It is interesting to note that I have obviously hit a raw nerve, because what this bill should say is not all this politically correct nonsense about the treaty, Māori, and those sorts of issues, it should be talking about the things that matter for Māori families, for Pacific Island families, and for families of every ethnic origin.

The United Future party went around the country saying that it was going to advocate for families, but all we get in this bill is the damn treaty. I say that the family is far more important to this country than the treaty will ever be, in terms of support for families. The bill should have addressed that, and it does not.

💬 Dianne Yates: Which bill?

💬 Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This bill about social workers. I do not expect the Labour Party to stand up for the families of New Zealand, but I thought United Future might.

💬 Larry Baldock: We are.

💬 Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Where is it mentioned? It is not mentioned once in the bill. Good social work practice has to be about social workers supporting families, and that is where Muriel Newman is with me, and that is what makes it different on this side of the House. It is good news that social workers are having a statutory framework. Let us hope it can raise standards. It is a pity about the politically correct nonsense and the Government’s incorrect priorities.