Report finds over $3 million spent on consultants to support Crown response unit into Abuse in Care

Oranga Tamariki spent more than $3 million on consultants to support the Crown Response Unit, facilitating the Government’s response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.

Figures released under the Official Information Act show the agency spent $2,488,378 on PwC consultant support for the Crown Response Unit, and $525,144 for EY to support the design of the redress system.

In a statement released to Newstalk ZB, Oranga Tamariki said it engages consultants “to provide specialist or professional advice, or to deliver defined pieces of work requiring specific expertise”.

“Consultants are typically engaged where specialist capability is not available internally, where an independent perspective is required, or to support the delivery of particular outputs,” the agency said.

Minister for Children Karen Chhour said she was confident the agency was aware of her expectations that consultants and contractors are only used when absolutely necessary.

She said the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was the “largest and most complex public inquiry in our nation’s history”.

“Likewise, the Crown Response Unit is also entirely unprecedented and its roles supporting survivors while also implementing recommendations from the Commission’s interim report and preparing for the Crown’s response to the final report required specialist short-term support from external consultants,” the minister said.

The Crown Response Unit was established in 2019 within Oranga Tamariki to co-ordinated the Crown’s response to the work of the Royal Commission.

It was replaced by the Crown Response Office in 2024 within the Public Service Commission to drive the Government’s response to the inquiry.

Creating a dedicated office within a central Government agency was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission’s final report.

The Official Information Act response detailed the $2.4 million PwC spend was aimed at supporting the design of redress approaches, programme management and policy development, strategy and planning following the Royal Commission’s final report, organisational design, and support for specific projects.

EY worked on developing a strategic roadmap for redress, specialist and financial modelling, analysis of overseas redress, and a review of aspects of the proposed scheme, the OIA said.

Oranga Tamariki added it engaged PwC when the Crown Response Unit was in its early stages and “operating at a relatively small scale”.

The agency’s expenditure on contractors and consultants overall has significantly decreased - from $37.1 million in 2021/22 to $12.9 million in 2024/25.

Chhour said she expects 2025/26 to “show a further reduction”.

Legislation around the redress system recently passed its third reading in Parliament, described by Lead Coordination Minister Erica Stanford as “one of several initiatives underway to improve the redress system”.

She said the bill introduces a presumption against financial redress for survivors with convictions for certain serious sexual and/or violent offences who have received a sentence of five years or more for that offence.

“The presumption only applies to financial redress payments. Survivors with serious violent or sexual offences can still access other forms of redress.

She said an independent decision-maker, called the ‘redress officer’, is established through the bill to consider applications to overturn the presumption.

“The Bill also resolves a long-standing gap in redress where survivors of abuse in mental health facilities after 1993 faced dead-ends and a lack of recognition. The Bill gives effect to Charlotte’s Change to extend the State redress scheme to include claims of abuse in State mental health facilities from July 1, 1993 to June 30, 2022,” Stanford said.

Opposition parties voted against the Bill, with Green MP Steve Abel saying the Bill did not go far enough, and was not “sufficient recognition of the extraordinary harm caused”.’

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care began in 2018 and tabled its final report in 2024.
The inquiry report said it was a “national disgrace” that an estimated 200,000 children, young people, and adults had been abused - and even more neglected, between 1950 and 2019.

In November 2024, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, the Leader of the Opposition, and public sector leaders delivered a formal apology to survivors.