It will examine witnesses from particular Crown agencies on matters set out in the Royal Commission’s Terms of Reference focusing on failures by the State to prevent and respond to abuse in Crown and faith-based care.

Witnesses will include chief executives, which will ensure the Royal Commission hears senior leadership perspectives.

Witnesses will be called from Oranga Tamariki, Social Development, Health, Whaikaha, Education, Education Review Office, Teaching Council, Police, Corrections, Te Puni Kōkiri, Pacific People, also the Children’s Commissioner and Ombudsman.

The Royal Commission will hold an Institutional Response hearing for faith institutions in October, with further details to come. 

The hearings will have both a historical and future recommendations focus.

Over recent months the Royal Commission has written to Crown agencies and faith institutions asking for written responses to questions regarding issues in our Terms of Reference.

These questions included: 

• Whether organisations had met their obligations under te Tiriti o Waitangi. 
• To what extent their care systems had met the needs of Māori, Pacific and Disabled people and people with mental health conditions. 
• How care systems were monitored and those in care protected from physical, psychological, sexual abuse and neglect. 
• How racism, ableism and bias impacted the delivery of care services. 
• The relationship between the State and faith in the care system. 
• Practices and procedures the State used when removing or uplifting children and young persons from their whānau or family. 
• How the care system is funded, resourced and staffed. 
• The provision of care and the nature and extent of abuse. 
• The handling of complaints. 
• The extent to which recommendations from previous inquiries and reports have been implemented and to what extent lessons have been learned. 

The State Institutional Response public hearing will take place from 15-26 August 2022 at 414 Khyber Pass Road, Newmarket, Auckland.

It will be open to the public and live streamed on the Royal Commission’s website.

Details about the Faith Institutional Response hearing, in October, will be announced soon. 

Institutional Response hearings scope document and Minutes

On 8 August 2022 the Royal Commission released a new Minute about the coming Institutional Response hearings. Minute 23 can be found here.

On 28 July 2022 the Royal Commission released a Minute about the coming Institutional Response hearings. The Minute can be found here. 

The Institutional Response hearing scope document can be found here. 

About the Royal Commission:

The Royal Commission is mandated to investigate and examine the Aotearoa New Zealand care system from 1950 -1999 and to make recommendations for changes to ensure factors that allowed abuse to occur in the past do not continue today and in the future.

The Inquiry has been looking at why people were taken into care, what abuse they suffered in care, and the effects of the abuse on them, their whānau and wider communities.

Evidence from our public hearings, investigations, survivor and witness accounts, research and policy review, hui, wānanga and fono and community engagement will inform the final report due to the Governor General in June 2023.

This final report will set out systemic findings and recommendations to ensure the future safety and wellbeing for tamariki, rangatahi and vulnerable adults in care.  

Over the course of the Inquiry, we have heard from over 2,700 survivors and their whānau who shared their experiences of being abused and neglected in care and the ongoing impacts the tūkino, abuse, has on them and their families and communities.