Amendments to the information sharing provisions

On 30 March 2016, Cabinet agreed to amend and replace the information sharing provisions in the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 with new and extended provisions to support tamariki-centred information sharing practices across the child welfare and protection section.

Further work with stakeholders in 2018/2019 showed that the new information sharing provisions needed to be amended to ensure they achieved the intended outcomes.

Cabinet subsequently agreed, as set out in the Cabinet Minute, that:

• the new provisions that enable authorised child welfare and protection agencies and independent persons to make requests for information to other authorised child welfare and protection agencies and independent persons not be operationalised on 1 July 2019, but will remain in the Act to be reviewed by 1 July 2021. Following that review, a decision will be made on whether to give effect to these provisions by issuing a Code of Practice
• the provisions relating to child welfare and protection agencies’ public notification of their use of combined dataset be repealed. That repeal was progressed through the Oranga Tamariki Amendment Act 2022 (enacted in December 2022).