What can linked administrative data tell us about outcomes for children and young people? David Rea (Ministry of Social Development) and Robert Templeton (Treasury) Sarah Tumen, Sarah Crichton, Robert Templeton, Rissa Ota, Debra Small, and David Rea, (2016) Research Using Administrative Data to Support the Work of the Expert Panel on Modernising Child, Youth and Family, Treasury Analytical Paper AP16/03,

DISCLAIMER The views, opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this presentation are strictly those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the New Zealand Treasury, the Ministry of Social Development, Statistics New Zealand or the New Zealand Government. The New Zealand Treasury, the Ministry of Social Development and the New Zealand Government take no responsibility for any errors or omissions in, or for the correctness of, the information contained in this presentation. The results in this report are not official statistics – they have been created for research purposes from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) managed by Statistics New Zealand. Access to the anonymised data used in this study was provided by Statistics NZ in accordance with security and confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act Only people authorised by the Statistics Act 1975 are allowed to see data about a particular person, household, business or organisation, and the results in this paper have been confidentialised to protect these groups from identification. Careful consideration has been given to the privacy, security and confidentiality issues associated with using administrative and survey data in the IDI. Further detail can be found in the privacy impact assessment for the Integrated Data Infrastructure available from The results are based in part on tax data supplied by Inland Revenue to Statistics NZ under the Tax Administration Act This tax data must be used only for statistical purposes, and no individual information may be published or disclosed in any other form or provided to Inland Revenue for administrative or regulatory purposes. Any person who has had access to the unit-record data has certified that they have been shown, have read and have understood section 81 of the Tax Administration Act 1994, which relates to secrecy. Any discussion of data limitations or weaknesses is in the context of using the IDI for statistical purposes and is not related to the data’s ability to support Inland Revenue’s core operational requirements.

Summary longitudinal administrative data has the potential to provide powerful new insights to inform policy and delivery our analysis shows that the level of contact with Child, Youth and Family (which we take to be a proxy for child abuse and neglect) is correlated with adverse life-course outcomes for children and young people the Expert Panel tasked with developing proposals to modernise Child, Youth and Family concluded that as a community we are not responding effectively to the risks and harms associated with maltreatment the good news is that there are programs and approaches that have been proven to be effective in other jurisdictions, and many of these could be considered and tested in New Zealand

Linked longitudinal administrative data can provide many new insights Our research used both the IDI, as well as the earlier Integrated Child Dataset A strength of the data is that we are measuring all the individuals in the resident population through time A limitation is that the data is only information collected as a by-product of government service delivery activities (so many things are not measured) Some data is missing for earlier years, and the data is not always consistent through time There is also measurement error as the data is created by linking individuals across different administrative datasets using attributes such as name and date of birth.

The Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) Statistics New Zealand database containing integrated longitudinal microdata about people, households, and businesses For a full list of data, go to Queries:

Born in year to June 1991 Age 5 Age 10 Age 17 Age 21 Child, Youth and Family records Benefit records School records Border data Corrections

Measuring childhood ‘care and protection contact with CYF’ for birth cohorts Most of our analysis looks at children born in New Zealand in the year to June 1991 who are resident in New Zealand as young people We measure the highest level of ‘care and protection contact with CYF’ for individuals in the cohort during their childhood -notification only -notification and investigation only -substantiated finding of abuse or neglect highest contact -placed in care We interpret these as proxy measures of the extent and seriousness of the abuse and neglect experienced by children Abuse and neglect Physical abuse Exposure to family violence Neglect Sexual abuseEmotional abuse

Most of our analysis looks at children born in New Zealand in 1991 who are resident in New Zealand as young people We measure the highest level of ‘care and protection contact with CYF’ for individuals in the cohort Overall 15% of the 1991 cohort had some level of care and protection contact with CYF (although for later cohorts where there is complete data at earlier ages the figure is almost 20%) Māori children and young people were 2.4 times more likely to have care and protection contact with CYF compared to Non- Māori Highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF for the cohort born in the year to June 1991 Source: ICD

Percentage who did not achieve NCEA level 2 by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: ICD Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage referred to CYF by Police due to concerns about youth offending, by highest level of prior childhood care and protection contact Source: ICD Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage with a community sentence by age 21, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: ICD Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage with a custodial sentence by age 21, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: ICD Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage received a benefit by age 21, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: ICD Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage received a benefit while supporting a child by age 21, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: ICD Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage of women who became a mother before age 23, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: IDI Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Percentage of women who have a child referred to CYF before age 23, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF of mother Source: IDI Note: cohort born in the year to June 1991

Deaths per 1000 between the ages of 10 to 21 years, by highest level of childhood care and protection contact with CYF Source: IDI Note: cohort born 1990 to 1993

In addition there are substantial fiscal costs associated with these outcomes Selected fiscal costs up to age 35 for cohort born in the 12 months to June 1991, by level of contact with Child, Youth and Family up to age 18 Note: Costs modelled from age 21 to age 35 years. Source: ICD

And young people with prior contact with CYF make up an important proportion of the ‘at-risk’ population for many agencies Source: ICD Percentage of young adults with poor outcomes who had had prior care and protection contact with Child, Youth and Family (cohort born in the 12 months to June 1991)

How should we interpret these important findings? 1 in 5 children are at risk of maltreatment over their childhood Our analysis only shows associations between child maltreatment and adverse lifetime outcomes (we have not controlled for confounding factors). However given the wider research literature in many areas, we suspect that a proportion of the adverse outcomes we observe are directly caused by maltreatment An important interpretation of our findings is that children who are notified to CYF have poor long-term outcomes and as a community we are not effectively addressing the life course disadvantage of these children

Taking a social investment approach (also referred to as a public health approach) Primary prevention Proven programs and approaches aimed at reducing the risk of maltreatment across the population Secondary prevention Proven programs and approaches aimed at reducing the risk of maltreatment, targeted at those with known risk factors Tertiary prevention and rehabilitation Care for children and young people who are at high risk of maltreatment, and support to address the trauma of past maltreatment Transition Support in the transition to adulthood for young people who have experienced abuse and neglect

A social investment approach with proven interventions Proven interventions with positive impacts, and total rate of return where calculated (Washington State Institute of Public Policy) Note: Rate of return is calculated as the total return (present value) for every dollar invested Source: EAP Report with data on rates of return based on WSIPP calculations