Related records improvement initiatives
Read about the 5 records improvement areas identified by the Crown Response Unit and how they’re grounded in the voices of survivors, their whānau and support people.
The Crown Response Unit
The Crown Response Unit was set up in February 2019 to coordinate and drive the Government’s response to the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry.
Find out more about the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry
The Crown Response Unit is leading the Crown’s work to improve the experience of seeking redress for survivors of abuse in care. The Unit has identified 5 records improvement areas, which have been approved by Cabinet to start before the Royal Commission’s final report is released.
Records improvement areas
Central website
A new central source of information providing:
survivors
people who have been in care
whānau, and
support people
with information and guidance on how and where to access records, and what to expect from the process.
Records support service
Designing a records support service to assist survivors with:
safely and easily requesting and receiving their records, and
finding other services that can help them.
Cataloguing and indexing
Increasing cataloguing and indexing of care records already held at Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand so records holders can find personal information more easily when someone asks for it.
Shared guidance principles
Developing shared principles to guide records holders on trauma-informed and human-centred access and management of care records. These will help them meet people’s needs better within current legislative frameworks.
Starting with redaction guidance, followed by work on wider guidance about:
records access
records creation, and
records disposal.
Retention and disposal of records
Improving the rules around:
how long care records should be kept, and
what should happen to them after that.
And also improving how people have a say in these decisions.
How the records improvement ideas were identified
Ideas for records improvements were drawn directly from:
the voices of survivors
survivors’ whānau and support people
other experts and advocates
report recommendations.
This means the ideas were seeded by people’s experiences as Māori survivors, Pacific Survivors, Deaf and disabled survivors — and those supporting them.
Consultation with Māori to test the impact of the initiative on Māori survivors, iwi and hapū
Ideas for records improvements were grounded in analysis of:
the voices of Māori survivors
Māori survivors’ whānau and support people
report recommendations — including voices from the Royal Commission’s Māori hearing and Māori witnesses at other hearings.
They were tested further with Māori survivors, advisors and organisations, including representatives from:
the Iwi Chairs Forum
VOYCE Whakarongo Mai
Te Pae Whakawairua
Te Puni Kōkiri.
After Cabinet approved the records improvements proposals, the high-level design involved:
Treaty partners
Māori survivors
whānau
Māori experts and care services providers.
They explained what information and concepts they value in the context of retention and disposal — such as the intergenerational value of information and collective rights in decision-making.