Introduction
This document describes how the Crown Response Unit treats information shared by participants before, during and after our engagement activities.
There are agreements at the end of each section for you to sign to confirm this document has been explained to you. Your contact at the Crown Response Unit will answer any questions you may have before you sign anything. You are invited to sign the agreements; or confirm verbally or via email your understanding of the content.
Content
There are three sections in this document.
Section 1
The first section is called Engagement approach: ways of working. It explains how we listen to you, treat you with respect and support you to stay safe before, during and after your engagement.
Section 2
The second section is a Confidentiality agreement we have with each other to keep everyone’s information safe.
Section 3
The third section is the Crown Response Unit’s privacy statement. It explains how personal information you share with us during your engagement with us is looked after. We are bound by the Privacy Act 2020 which promotes and protects an individual’s right to privacy and autonomy regarding their personal information.
Although the Crown Response Unit reports to a group of Ministry Chief Executives and to the Minister for the Public Service, it is a semi-autonomous business unit of Oranga Tamariki. We use Oranga Tamariki IT systems; and financial, legal and other support services when required, and on a confidential basis. Except for specific uses of those support services, and the Crown Response Unit’s responsibility to report live safety concerns for children to Oranga Tamariki, the personal information that participants share with us is not accessible to Oranga Tamariki staff outside of the Crown Response Unit.
Section 1: Engagement approach: ways of working
This section explains how we listen to you, treat you with respect and support you to stay safe before, during and after your engagement.
Our engagement approach is guided by the following principles:
- manaakitanga
- transparency
- being open
- honesty
- learning
- being joined up
- meeting obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
We are open to you including other principles to support your engagement.
How we work
We will be in touch with you regularly throughout the engagement. Contact can be via phone calls, face-to-face meetings, online meetings and/or email. We also encourage you to share information or updates with us.
You can stop engaging with us at any time by letting us know either verbally or in writing.
Conflicts of interest
We will send out information to be discussed during an engagement and will ask you if there are any financial conflicts of interest regarding this material. A conflict of interest includes a financial interest of you, your family members, or an employer of any member of your family.
You agree to declare any financial conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest to us. We will then work with you to manage this conflict.
Resolving issues
If you have any issues in the way we engage with you, we will work with you by:
- being clear on our engagement process and ensuring you can seek further information or explanation
- encouraging you to bring a support person to any meeting set up to discuss any issues you may have
- working with you so we can reach a decision everyone agrees to and communicate these decisions in a respectful way
- observing and applying principles of natural justice
- providing private mediation for either party, or both, if you and the Crown Response Unit cannot resolve a matter.
Engagement approach: ways of working agreement
Do you understand and agree to the engagement approach outlined? Yes/No
Do you agree to declare any financial conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest to the Crown Response Unit? Yes/No
Name________________________________________
Participant/support person/whānau/representative signature
_____________________________________________
(can be signed, verbal or email)
Date_____________
Crown Response Unit representative
Section 2: Maintaining confidentiality
This section describes the agreement we need to have with each other to keep everyone’s information safe. This is called ‘maintaining confidentiality’. You will be asked to sign an agreement about this.
Your information
We will not share your information with anyone who did not take part in the engagement.
Others information
If you take part in an engagement with other people, you may hear personal information about them.
By signing the agreement, you agree to not share any information about others in the engagement.
This agreement does not include information about participants that is already public, for example on a website.
Our information
We will share Crown information with you that may still be a work in progress and not Government policy. This means it cannot be shared with anyone else outside of your network or with the media. If you share it with your network, please ask they keep this information confidential.
Confidentiality agreement
Do you agree to maintain confidentiality, as described above? Yes/No
Name________________________________________
Participant/support person/whānau/representative signature
_____________________________________________
(can be signed, verbal or email)
Date_____________
Crown Response Unit representative
Section 3: The Crown Response Unit Privacy Statement
This section explains how personal information you share with us during your engagement with the Crown Response Unit is looked after. We are bound by the Privacy Act 2020 which promotes and protects an individual’s right to privacy and autonomy regarding their personal information.
Support from Oranga Tamariki
Although the Crown Response Unit reports to a group of Ministry Chief Executives, and to the Minister for the Public Service, it is a semi-autonomous business unit of Oranga Tamariki. We use Oranga Tamariki IT systems; and financial, legal and other support services on a confidential basis. Except for specific uses of those support services, and the Crown Response Unit’s responsibility to report live safety concerns for children to Oranga Tamariki, the personal information that survivors share with us is not accessible to Oranga Tamariki staff outside of the Crown Response Unit.
Collection, storage, use and disposal of your personal information
We engage with care-experienced people and survivors of abuse in care, to ask for feedback on our work programme.
While we are not asking participants to share personal information about their own experiences in care, we anticipate some participants may choose to do so as part of their feedback.
Participation is voluntary, and you can withdraw at any time.
We will be clear about how insights and views gathered from participants will be used. This information is only used for the purpose it was collected, and it will always be stored securely in an electronic form.
You can ask us to not use information you provide at any stage up until the time that your information has been anonymised. We will not be able to identify and remove your anonymised personal information once it has been collated with other participants’ information.
In line with the moratorium on the disposal of public records relating to the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, the information we collect will need to be retained indefinitely. This will be reviewed once the moratorium is lifted and Oranga Tamariki has implemented its own Disposal Authority.
At times we may request your consent to record a video of our session with you. The video recording is used to ensure our written record accurately reflects what you have told us. Once you have confirmed to us that the final written record is accurate the video recording is deleted.
How we take care of information
In line with the Privacy Act, we have guidelines on how we look after information.
We record your personal information in writing and sometimes as a temporary video recording.
After the engagement, we email you a draft of the written record of your information to check the accuracy. We ask you to reply to our email to confirm the final record that we will hold is an accurate record of the information you shared with us.
We may revisit other personal information that you have previously given to us,or which is available as part of the public records of the testimonies given in the Royal Commission’s public hearings. If we do that, all of these records are sent to you to review and to confirm their accuracy. You can also add any other comments you might have.
Once you have confirmed the full record’s accuracy, we make an anonymised copy by removing personal identifiers such as name, address, postcode, telephone number, photographs or images, and/or other unique personal characteristics. You can request a draft copy of your anonymised information before we finalise the record. We will keep a copy of your anonymised record on your file.
The anonymised information is then collated with information received from others in your identified community group (i.e. Māori, Pacific, rangatahi, Deaf & Disabled, non-state care & faith-based, and state care survivors). That information is brought together in a ‘theming workshop’ with the involvement and oversight of Crown Response Unit staff who have had a role in this round of engagements.
The theming workshop is used to develop advice and recommendations for Ministers’ decisions.
Other forums where we may use your anonymised insights in our advice include:
- inter-agency discussions to inform and influence agencies working with us on the design of improved or new services
- helping new staff understand what we are working on and why it is important
- discussions with organisations we are partnering with to communicate ‘why’, and ‘how’ improvements are being designed and implemented
- to advocate for improvements with wider audiences, or explain why they are designed a certain way.
There are times where we may use direct quotes from participants to emphasise a particular point. We will always seek agreement from those participants before using any direct statements.
If quoting you directly could risk you being identified by people who are familiar with your views and/or experiences, please advise us immediately.
The Crown Response Unit must seek and receive your consent if we want to use your personal information in a different way or for a different purpose.
Confidentiality and its limits
Any information you share with us will be kept confidential. Where information you provide to us is used, it will be anonymised. However, there are three important exceptions to this confidentiality:
- if you tell us about a current and serious risk to the health and safety of yourself or any other person (including a child or vulnerable adult), then the Crown Response Unit will contact an appropriate service such as a mental health service or the Police.
- if information you give us leads us to believe that there is a risk to the well-being or best interests of a child or young person, then we will make a Report of Concern to Oranga Tamariki
- if you tell us about serious criminal offending that is ongoing or planned for the future, then we will contact the Police.
Accessing your personal information held by the Crown Response Unit
You can access your personal information for as long as the Crown Response Unit continues to hold the information, including after the engagements are completed.
You can do this by making a verbal or written request to the Crown Response Unit via the email address: contact@abuseinquiryresponse.govt.nz
Once your information has been anonymised and collated with feedback from other participants, it will no longer be identifiable and cannot be retrieved or removed.
Privacy Principles and the Health Information Privacy Code
The content in this section has been developed in line with the Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code. These Privacy Principles are designed to help government agencies (and other institutions like schools and hospitals) make the right decisions about the collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information including health information.
You can find out more about the Privacy Principles here.
You can find out more about the Health Information Privacy Principles here.
Privacy Statement agreement
Do you understand the steps the Crown Response Unit will take to protect your privacy? Yes/No
Name________________________________________
Participant/support person/whānau/representative signature
_____________________________________________
(can be signed, verbal or email)
Date_____________
Crown Response Unit representative