Our recommendations

We recommend that, as the lead agency for overseeing the Child and Youth Strategy's priority to reduce child material hardship, the Ministry of Social Development:

1. work with other public organisations on an integrated implementation plan to reduce child material hardship, setting out how initiatives should be sequenced and co-ordinated;
2. ensure that cross-agency governance is sufficiently focused on effective co-ordination of child poverty initiatives, both between public organisations and with community groups, and on integration with frontline services to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged; and
3. strengthen engagement with Māori, other population groups disproportionately experiencing child poverty, and relevant community organisations to enable more consistent and sustained input into the work programme to reduce child material hardship.