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Vulnerable Victorian kids suffer from Child Protection IT Bungle

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Victoria’s overworked child protection workers are being forced to spend more time in front of computers at the expense of abused and neglected children because of the Brumby Government’s incompetence, Shadow Minister for Community Services Mary Wooldridge said today.

A leaked report reveals the Brumby Government’s new case management IT system has increased the administrative workload of child protection workers, reducing their ability to look after vulnerable Victorian children.

A scathing report by the Nous Group in 2006 found that the new Client Relationship Information System (CRIS) took almost double the time to register a notification of child abuse as the old IT system it replaced. The old IT system, CASIS, took 38 minutes to register a notification of child abuse, while CRIS takes 73 minutes to use.

"While John Brumby’s government has made it harder for already stressed child protection workers, workforce shortages have left thousands of at-risk children without a case worker and staff have been forced to compromise the care and protection of abused children," Ms Wooldridge said.

"Additional time spent in front of a computer is time that cannot be spent working directly with vulnerable children and families."

The 2006 Nous report found that there was a significant increase in workload for Intake Workers between CASIS to CRIS, for reasons including:

The significantly increased amount of time required for child protection workers to enter basic data;
The much slower response time of CRIS; and
An increased administrative work and increased difficulty in performing basic tasks using CRIS.

These concerns were repeated in the Ombudsman’s report into child protection released last month, almost three years after the Nous report.

"The cost of CRIS has blown out from $29 million to $95 million and further costs are expected", Ms Wooldridge said.

"Once again, the incompetence of the Brumby Government proves it cannot be trusted to protect our most vulnerable children."

In relation to CRIS, in 2009 the Ombudsman found:

Data was not reliable;
Cumbersome record keeping processes make it difficult for staff to readily access important information
The system required additional effort to register an Intake notification;
Response times are slower;
additional administrative steps are required to use the CRIS Intake process;
Staff were accessing the CRIS system inappropriately;
DHS failed to conduct random or frequent audits and failed to appropriately respond to breaches of privacy; and
CRIS not only failed to provide the child protection system with a more effective tool than its predecessor, but it also impaired the department’s efficiency without providing adequate functionality.

Key findings from the 2006 Nous Group Report:

CRIS intake process requires additional effort to register a notification;
Response times are slower than CASIS;
There is little evidence of process re-engineering for the Intake process;
There is an unnecessary reliance by Intake Workers on the document regeneration function in CRIS;
There are additional administrative steps in the CRIS Intake process;
The IT capability of intake workers varies significantly; and
Intake workers are not obtaining the desired results from the CRIS search function.

Authorised by Mary Wooldridge MP, 2/1020 Doncaster Road, Doncaster East, 3109

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Vulnerable Victorian kids suffer from Child Protection IT Bungle