Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill

Sorry, I’m just getting to the place of this debate. So in terms of the issues that we have addressed in the committee today, I want to just reiterate for those who have just joined this debate that this is not a debate on policy in terms of mandatory registration of social workers, because we do agree with that on this side of the House. In fact, this side of the House introduced the legislation. So in terms of the title of this, there will be no debate—well, not from me, anyway. There might be debate from my colleagues, so I don’t want to speak for them. But where I think the real issue is in this particular debate on clauses 1 and 2 is around the commencement. The Minister has said that, you know, this legislation has—the House has waited for a long time, given that it’s been 16 years, and I flatly refute that. In terms of the commencement of this legislation, it will come into effect within particular time frames that are clearly laid out in clause 2 on page 8 of what is now the Supplementary Order Paper. One of the clear challenges around the commencement, though, is the Social Workers Registration Board and their ability to manage what could be, potentially, a large volume of work that is now coming their way as a result of not just the changes to the bill that National agrees with but also the Supplementary Order Paper that was tabled or dropped on the House with very little warning.

So I wanted to just go through the implications of the commencement date, because the Social Services and Community Committee actually heard from the Social Workers Registration Board last week in their annual financial review. It’s a very small organisation—they do a mighty job—and although they have been planning for changes to their legislation and being prepared for the commencement of the legislation, what they, obviously, haven’t been able to do is prepare for the changes based on Supplementary Order Paper 187.

As this side of the House has highlighted, there may well be agreement around the inclusion and the significant change of the scope of practice, but how easy will that be for the Social Workers Registration Board to implement—and the impact, therefore, on the commencement dates? All of the sections are listed in there, and I wondered if the Minister had actually considered a change to the implementation of this legislation to enable to Social Workers Registration Board to adequately gear up for what is a significant change, based on issues like the—I’ve just lost the word. Instead of it being the qualifications that were the New Zealand qualifications—the change in that area, the change in terms of the scope of practice and whether there’s multiple or one, and the impact on the social worker needing to appear before the Social Workers Registration Board on multiple occasions. If they’ve changed job, a different scope of practice applies, and therefore they need to appear back before the Social Workers Registration Board—issues that were asked of the Social Workers Registration Board last week around funding and timing of any funding, whether they would be requesting Crown funding.

So my question to the Minister in terms of the commencement is: in any of those areas, was there a discussion with the Social Workers Registration Board to, for example, wait until after the Budget this year to see if they had secured additional funding for resources? They will be required to grow their organisation to deliver this legislation, particularly in the time frames that are stated, and so I’m interested to know whether or not the Minister had looked at any one of the clauses—I could list them: clauses 4, 5A, 6B, 7, 8, 9, etc.—and whether there was a consideration for any one of those that had a wider impact.

We’ve seen in this House still quite a large area of uncertainty from those members of the sector that have contacted Opposition members and asked for clarity, so the timing of the commencement of this legislation and each individual section—was it considered—[Time expired]

I will take the time just to outline what is in the preliminary clauses part of this bill. I just want to state that we are here talking about the renaming of the Act and the set-up of commencement provisions.

Can I just say that with respect to the timing of provisions, which has been raised by the honourable member Louise Upston, it does state really clearly that following the passing of the bill, there are two years to prepare for mandatory registration. That was in the original bill. That’s not impacted or influenced by the Supplementary Order Paper that we’ve brought to the House.

Also, it goes on to say that once the bill receives Royal assent, changes to social worker registration will be implemented in stages. Some of the bill will enter into force the day following Royal assent, including changes to professional development for social workers, new mandatory reporting requirements to the board for employers of social workers, and various administrative and efficiency improvements. Also, five years after Royal assent—expected to be in 2024—the experience-based pathway to registration will be repealed, which will complete the legislative changes.

So the three points that I’ve just outlined actually align exactly with what was in the original bill and are not impacted by Supplementary Order Paper 187 in any way. The clauses of the bill and the sections that are are those that mention scopes of practice. So, for instance, social workers, employers, and the board have two years to ensure new policies and processes are in place requiring all social workers to be registered under a scope of practice, and for practising social workers to also have a practising certificate. Social workers are eligible to be registered only if they are competent and fit to practise social work.

So without trying to traverse that area again—it’s been covered off in Part 1 and Part 2—can I just say that the majority of what is in here, apart from that which refers to scopes of practice, was actually set in the original bill. So I don’t feel like there is much to debate there, given that we had agreement to those time frames.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am so pleased that you are the only arbiter of that which is relevant to the bill and to the debate that’s in the committee, and so I do appreciate the opportunity here.

Just in regards to the clauses that are pertinent to this part of the debate in the committee stage in the House, I do want to raise the issue in regards to the commencement date that my colleague the Hon Louise Upston had raised. We actually had the Social Workers Registration Board before the Social Services and Community Committee last week. One of the issues that was raised, I suppose, was the issue around capacity. We’re fully aware, as the Minister for Social Development has reiterated just a moment ago, of the two-year transition process. Well, what was given to us was a bigger and broader picture in regards to current capacity challenges that are before the Social Workers Registration Board, and whether over that period of time from the commencement date—and, again, we thought that it would have been earlier. It’s not; it’s been prolonged another six months from the time it’s been brought back to the House.

But to the Minister, I suppose the question that I have, which has come out of the reports that were given to us in the select committee, is that at the moment there are capacity issues for the Social Workers Registration Board. The commencement date of this bill will put pressure on the board. They talked about the fact that currently, at the moment, there are 6,300 social workers that are registered, and approximately 2,000 that are not. So that’s the capacity there, but they also enlightened us to the fact that there are now approximately another 1,100 social workers about to be graduated over the next year or two that’s coming up.

So that is a relevant issue around the commencement date. It is important that we seek the guidance from the Minister where she’s taken this into consideration, because the issue of capacity was raised in regards to the Social Workers Registration Board being able to handle this pressure of the changes that are there. So, for instance, for those that are eligible to be not only on the board—and we acknowledge the changes. In fact, we acknowledge the new chairperson of the board that’s now coming on to the board, but also, too, the workforce that is currently there at the moment. We know that, at the moment, in order to process the changes—not just the Supplementary Order Paper; the whole bill in itself. So the question to the Minister is: has she taken that into consideration?

When we asked the issue around funding, at the moment, as it currently sits for the Social Workers Registration Board, with the current funding base that they have—and the commencement date is important to this—it’s still on a fees-based process. They did talk about the fact that they were seeking advice and were looking at putting an application through, but, again, this is important to the commencement date because this will add further pressure, because once the commencement date, the Royal assent—once that’s been had, then what will happen is that the board itself will have to enact the legislation. What we’ve heard quite clearly at the moment is that even if it’s a two-year period, that period of time may still put pressure on the Social Workers Registration Board, and I think that’s critically important. So we’d like to hear from the Minister. I imagine she’ll get advice from the officials. Again, this is hot off the press from the board itself in regards to their concerns; we are just relaying those concerns in the Chamber, in this committee stage.

The other parts of the clause do talk about the registration of persons or practising experience under section 13. Again, we didn’t have any issues with this when it was going through the select committee process. But the question to the Minister in this regards, which was not debated in the other parts, was in the issue of recognised prior learnings, and how that would be enacted. In Part 2, clause 2 of that, it talks about registration of persons based on practical experience under section 13 following repeal of section 13. So this is another relevant issue. It’s a small issue but quite important because a number of those that have been practising in the field have had recognised prior learnings. The question to the Minister is that will that be included in this part in the consideration when it comes to the issue of accreditation and then moving on to manage your registration as social workers in the field as well? So I raise that issue as well.

The last part that I want to raise in the brief time that I have available to me is in regards to complaints assessment committees. I think, again, this was raised in regards to a process and whether the Minister, again, will seek advice from the advisers in regards to this process. It was talked about whether this would be something—now, I know the regulatory side of this will be the Social Workers Registration Board, but whether there was a consideration, and this came from the feedback last week with the board, in regards to an advisory committee that would oversee the process around complaints and the assessment of those complaints. In other words, would there be a collaborative working group with those from the associations, not the Social Workers Registration Board, that would then form an oversight over the committee.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I’m very pleased to be speaking on what now is title and commencement, and with a spot of luck that remains clauses 1 and 2 as a preamble to Parts 1 and 2.

Clause 1, obviously, is the title. I wouldn’t mind the Minister explaining why the word “registration” remains. In fact, actually, I need to take a step back. There are actually a number of changes between what the select committee reported and what Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 187 indicates. It was mentioned earlier in this discussion [Member coughs]—excuse my voice—that there were, basically, no changes. There have been a number of sections introduced in this SOP that are going to be commencing two years after the date of Royal assent. Now, again, like so many things, that looks simple, but as I hope to illustrate in the coming minutes, there’s actually one glaring problem, particularly around section 5.

So substantial changes—not that that necessarily means an extraordinarily long time or times of discussion. The first, though, is, of course, the title clause, and I don’t intend to indulge the committee with alternative names. That’s not really the proper place tonight. But there is a slight contradiction in that the title of this bill is not actually removing the word “registration”. We’ve spent many an hour in this House discussing the changes from a registration process to that around scope of practice and the protection, rightly, of the name of social worker. Yet we’re not actually removing the word registration from the Act itself. So when you go to the schedules, you will see, particularly Schedule 1 and all the various parts there, there’s been a very thorough move to remove the word registration from all, basically, relevant clauses in other pieces of legislation. I’m wondering from the Minister in the chair, Carmel Sepuloni, whether she can explain if it’s just simply an oversight that of all the places that the word “registration” was not removed, the most obvious one being the title, it’s not removed. It’s not so much that it’s a contradiction; it’s just, perhaps, an oversight, and we’ve unfortunately experienced a number of those tonight, including with the regulatory impact statement. But I’d like the Minister in the chair to explain that. Fundamentally, if we’re removing the word “registration” from everywhere, why did we not take the opportunity tonight to have that removed from the title? I personally think a new title, “Social Workers Legislation”, would have just been tighter and tidier. So, really, it’s a twofold question to the Minister: was this an oversight, or if the Minister doesn’t wish to discuss or admit that, if you will, is that something that she would consider changing?

We then move, of course, as night follows day, to clause 2, if this SOP’s accuracy remains. We see in clause 2, subsection (1) that a whole series of sections are to come into force two years after the date on which the Act receives Royal assent. Again, that’s fairly logical when one looks at the clauses—it’s time to integrate them. The particular question, though, is why clause 5—clause 5, Minister—is not placed within those commencement clauses. We have clause 4 and then new clause 5A in there, but the interpretation section is not. I spent quite a bit of time, when we discussed Part 1, about the issues with these new definitions, and I want to thank the Minister for the clarity she provided, but the fundamental question we’re looking at is commencement. It’s numerically illogical to be able to create and start section 5A, which is an amendment of interpretations, but not actually bring into play at the same time the interpretations themselves. Now, I may have overlooked something there—that is always, always possible. It’s possible that, actually, the Minister wants those interpretations to commence immediately, and, therefore, sections 4, 5A, 6B, and following are a logical conclusion. But in my reviewing of the text, particularly to commence 5A without having 5 commence at the same time seems a little bit illogical to me. But, as I always say, I’m very happy to be corrected on that.

Look, then we come into section 10. This is repealing the practical experiences. I think it’s in itself practical, if I might use a tautology, that that is there, but there are two questions I think the Minister needs to address.

I wasn’t going to take another call, but I will just respond to a few of the points raised. So the issue around why the bill is called the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill is because this is about the registration of social workers, and it’s a bill. Just responding to Simon O’Connor’s question about why the word “registered” doesn’t need to be used throughout the bill, it is because this bill is legislating that social worker registration is mandatory, so then we no longer need to refer to the registered social worker inside the bill because anyone that uses this title, from here on in, will be a registered social worker. So we don’t need to use that word in there.

Can I also just address some of the issues that were raised around funding, and can I just state that Government agencies will be working with the board to ensure that preparations are in place to support the implementation of what they’re going to be expected to do, and their board—and I’m sure that they raised this—will get extra funding from the increase in registrations as well as the streamlining that will occur as part of what they’re doing, which will reduce some of the board’s current costs.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. It is not my intention to pursue issues in respect of clause 1 and the title of the bill, but I do want to raise some questions with the Minister in the chair, Carmel Sepuloni, about the complexity of the four different commencement notes on different parts of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill. The first thing I want to note that’s quite odd in the commencement clause is that there’s no, sort of, logical working around it, in the sense that some of he provisions come into effect on the day the bill receives Royal assent, some of them come into effect three months later, some two years later, and some five years later. It doesn’t even follow in that order, I’d repeat to my colleague. But, actually, I do want to ask some questions of the Minister about the justification for those variations.

Now, my first question is with respect to it being five years that you can continue to be registered as a social worker on the basis of prior experience—that is, under clause 2(2), referring to section 10. What we’re, effectively, saying is that if you’re not qualified, you don’t have a degree in social work that’s provided by a number of our institutions, and you want to get registered as a social worker, we’re, effectively, giving five years. I do suggest to the Minister in the chair that people will take as much time as they have got. Now, I was responsible for a law that requires all homes to be insulated, something I think has pretty broad support across the Parliament, and we’re all sitting here a bit frustrated, four months away from 1 July this year. The longer you leave for people to do it—do we really need to leave five years for the time frame in which someone has to apply to the board for registration, as provided for in section 10? That takes us all the way out to, realistically, 2024. Is that really justified, that five years in which people will be able to get registered by prior experience? My view is that people who are social workers who don’t have degree should be able to get on and get that process under way beforehand.

Then my second part that I’m confused by is the two years before the penalty provisions that are changed in clause 63(1) come into effect. Now, any piece of legislation such as this, which is introducing a requirement for social workers to be properly registered, is only as good as the penalties that apply, and I’ve not heard any justification from the Minister as to why you would stretch out for a period of two years before any of those penalties. Why would that provision not come into effect on the date that the legislation gets its Royal assent?

Then, the further part that just adds to the confusion around when this bill is commenced is with respect to the changes in the make-up of the registration board. Currently, the registration board is made up of 10 members, with six that are social workers and four that are not. The select committee and the bill changes that from four social workers to three, and yet we’ve got this funny provision in a new subclause (2A) in clause 2, “Commencement”, that says that the time frame for that provision change has got to be three months.

Now, I’ve been through the Cabinet process often and I’m pretty familiar with appointments. Why is it that we have to wait three months for that provision to come into effect, and given that you’ve got sections 4, 7, 8, 13, 63(1) and (1A), and 65(2) all coming in under a different time frame, wouldn’t it be easier for us to have a more straightforward commencement clause and to bring those provisions all in at a similar time? I think it is particularly confusing that you have got the changes in the make-up of the board that registers social workers, changes in the time when people are able to use their prior experience, and changes when the new penalties come in that are all over four different time frames. It makes for a bit of a muddled commencement clause.

I move, That the question be now put.