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The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions was established in 2018 to investigate children, young people, and vulnerable adults’ experiences of abuse and neglect in State and non-State care in Aotearoa New Zealand between the years of 1950-1999.
The Royal Commission ended on 25 June 2024.
The government's work programme is focused on responding to the Royal Commission's recommendations.
The Royal Commission made:
Of these 233 recommendations:
The government response to the 207 recommendations covers the following three areas:
As of May 2025, out of the 207 recommendations addressed to the Crown the Government has:
An overview of the Crown's response is below. This will be updated once a year.
| Complete | Underway | Ongoing | Not started | Total | |
| Accept | 3 | 6 | 10 | - | 19 |
| Accept intent | 4 | 28 | 6 | - | 38 |
| Partially accept | 6 | 13 | 8 | 1 | 28 |
| Further consideration required | - | 38 | - | 61 | 99 |
| Decline | 23 | - | - | - | 23 |
| Total | 36 | 85 | 24 | 62 | 207 |
The definitions of the response are:
| Accept | The recommendation is accepted. It will be implemented as it was set out by the Royal Commission. |
| Accept intent | The intent of the recommendation is accepted. It will be implemented in a different way than set out by the Royal Commission. |
| Partially accept | One or more sub-parts of the recommendation are accepted as set out by the Royal Commission. The recommendation is not accepted in full. |
| Further consideration required | The recommendation requires further consideration before a response can be determined. |
| Decline | Following analysis and a decision-making process, the Crown declines to implement this recommendation. |
The definitions of the status are:
| Not started | Work on the analysis and/or implementation of the recommendation has not yet started. |
| Under way | Work has begun on the analysis and/or implementation of the recommendation. |
| Complete | Work on the recommendation has been completed, consistent with the agreed project scope and decisionmaking process. |
| Ongoing | The work to deliver on the recommendation part of an ongoing programme of work or activity. |
Crown response digital version for reading online [PDF, 2 MB]
Crown response plan version for printing [PDF, 2.2 MB]
Crown response plan word version [DOCX, 1.4 MB]
Alternate formats of a summary of the Crown response plan are available here.
The Royal Commission’s recommendations are summarised throughout the document but have not been duplicated, because of their length. The recommendations can be found in full here:
The government published a Redress Implementation Plan (the Plan) in September 2025 that describes what, how and when improvements will be made to redress for survivors of abuse and neglect in State care.
The Ministries of Social Development, Education, Health, Oranga Tamariki, Department of Corrections, Te Puni Kōkiri and the Crown Response Office are responsible for implementing the redress improvements over the next few years.
The timeframe for the Plan reflects what changes can happen now and what requires more work.
As changes are implemented, data and feedback from survivors will be used to understand the impact of the changes, what is working well, and where further changes are required. This will support an independent review of the redress changes in 2027.
As a result, the Plan is a living document that will be updated regularly.
improvements to redress and care safety system
You can find proactively released Cabinet papers about the response here: Proactive release of decisions about the Crown response
Since 'Whanaketia' was published, several actions have been taken:
The Government broadly accepts the Royal Commission’s overall findings in response to recommendation 130 in 'Whanaketia' that states: the Government publish a response to its findings in both the final and interim reports within two months of the report being tabled in Parliament (24 September 2024).
There are over 500 findings in the Royal Commission’s final and interim reports: Reports | Abuse in Care - Royal Commission of Inquiry(external link)).
The findings focus on survivors experiences of abuse and factors that contributed to that abuse.
A detailed response to these findings would require officials from multiple agencies to test each individual finding. This would be a resource and time intensive process but would not support the people who were abused in care or improve the safety of people who are currently in care.
Instead, Crown response agencies are responding to the Royal Commission recommendations which aim to both support survivors of abuse in care and improve the current care system.
If you would like to stay up to date on the government's response please email: contact@abuseinquiryresponse.govt.nz with 'Pānui, Newsletter' in the email subject line.
