On this page
- Eligibility for our process
- Making sure your claim is in the right place
- Making a claim
- Support available
- Rapid payment options
- Assessing your claim
- Responding to your claim
- Criminal conduct
- Special requests or needs
- Limitation policy for claims of abuse in state care
- Royal Commission of Inquiry
- Maintaining your privacy
- Contacts
Eligibility for our process
A sensitive claim is where a person believes they were abused in a New Zealand state school and would like some form of redress from the Ministry of Education. In the past, these were called historic abuse claims.
You may be able to lodge a sensitive claim with the Ministry of Education if you believe you were abused (physical, sexual, psychological), mistreated or neglected, and you believe that the experience has harmed you in some way when you attended:
- a specialist school before 1989
- a primary school prior to 1989
- any state school that is now closed (including specialist schools and health camp schools), and
- you believe that this experience has harmed you in some way.
We do not accept claims on behalf of individuals who are deceased.
Making sure your claim is in the right place
In some cases, we won’t be the right place for your claim. For example, if your claim is about incidents at a primary school after 1989 or at a secondary school and that school is still open, the school’s board might be the correct respondent to your claim.
If you would like to lodge a claim about your time at a state school and you are unsure about where to go, we are happy to discuss this with you. We can also support you to talk to a school board about your concerns if you wish.
We cannot consider claims about private schools. You will need to discuss this with the governing body of the school in the first instance.
Making a claim
When you lodge a claim with us, there is some information we need from you to get the process started.
Sensitive claim lodgement form- Download and complete the form.
Provide:
- your full name and date of birth
- the name of the school(s) you are complaining about
- the period you were at the school (this can be an estimate)
- a very general explanation about your concerns. We don’t expect you to go into detail right at the start. But we need an indication of what your complaints are about for us to know if our process is right for you
- a copy of your photo ID.
A senior advisor from the Sensitive Claims team will be available to help you through the process.
- We will search for records we hold about you.
We will search for any records we hold about you and we can provide you with a copy of this material. We will do this under the Privacy Act 2020.
With your consent, we can also help you get your records from a school.
We are happy to answer any questions you have about your records.
- We run the assessment.
If we are the right place for your claim and you are comfortable continuing through the process, your claim will be added to the queue for an assessment.
We currently have a number of claims waiting to be assessed. We generally try to assess older claims first, so there is some wait for an assessment.
We will consider prioritising the assessment of a claim in special circumstances.
Support available
We understand lodging a claim can be distressing. We can pay for up to 6 counselling sessions while your claim is being processed.
Rapid payment options
Rapid payments are an optional way to settle your claim with the Ministry quickly and without the need for a full assessment.
Assessing your claim
We will appoint an assessor to assess your claim. The assessor is external to the Ministry.
We will invite you to meet with the assessor to talk about your experiences and discuss what you would like from the process. We can arrange for this meeting to take place at a location, date and time that is convenient to you. You are welcome to bring whānau and other support people with you to this meeting.
You can also bring along any documentation you have if you think this information will help the assessor.
The assessor will consider the information you share with them, as well as any other relevant material we have find, such as documentation from the school. The assessor will review all of this information to consider the merits of your claim.
Alternative arrangements
If you don’t think you can manage a meeting or would prefer not to have one, we can discuss alternative arrangements with you.
Responding to your claim
We will contact you with our response to your claim. This might include a telephone discussion and a letter to you. If you have a lawyer, we will write to them.
If there was wrongdoing, we will make an offer to resolve your claim. This may include a written apology from a senior Ministry official and/or a payment to acknowledge your experiences. You are welcome to seek legal advice about our response to your claim.
If you are unhappy with our response, you can discuss this with us. If appropriate, we can review our response. This might happen in circumstances where, for example, more information becomes available.
Criminal conduct
If your complaint is about criminal conduct, you may like to consider making a complaint to the NZ Police.
We might want to refer the issues you have raised with us to the Police ourselves, particularly if we are concerned that there could be a current risk to the safety of children. We will discuss this with you if we would like to do this.
Special requests or needs
We will accommodate any special requests or needs you have, where appropriate.
If you need a sign language interpreter when you meet with us, we can organise for you to have the support of your preferred interpreter.
We will be respectful of your culture and values.
You are not required to have a lawyer to make a claim with us, but you are free to seek legal advice at any stage of the process. If you have a lawyer, correspondence about your claim will be through them.
You can put your claim on hold at any time.
Limitation policy for claims of abuse in state care
Taking a claim through the Ministry of Education’s sensitive claims process does not affect your right to take your case to court.
Crown agencies have developed a limitation policy to help protect your right to go to court from the effects of the Limitation Act 1950 and the Limitation Act 2010 while you are engaging with a Crown sensitive claims process.
You can stop the counting of time for limitation purposes by filing your claim in court. But the limitation policy means that time you spend engaging with a sensitive claims process is not counted for the purposes of calculating timeframes under limitation law. This means that you will not be disadvantaged if you try and resolve your claim directly with the Ministry before filing your claim in court.
If you have any questions about the limitation policy, we recommend that you seek legal advice.
Read the limitation policy and an easy-read guide to the policy.
Limitation policy for historic claims of abuse in state-careRules about counting time for claims about abuse in State careRoyal Commission of Inquiry
Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care and in Care of Faith-Based Institutions
The Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions has released its final landmark report 'Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light'.
Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light
Find out more on the Royal Commission’s website.
Abuse in Care – Royal Commission of Inquiry
Maintaining your privacy
Personal information is being collected by the Ministry for the purpose of assessing your claim. We are committed to keeping your information safe. Any information you provide, including your name, contact details, and information about your claim, will be securely filed. Information you provide will only be used for the purpose it was collected for and will not be disclosed by the Ministry except in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and any relevant Court orders.
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