This week, Queensland’s Education Department revealed that another 300 reports of child abuse made by Queensland school principals were blocked by an IT glitch. This is the third IT glitch Queensland has reported this year in their child protection reporting system.
These system failures are disturbing not only from a child safety perspective, but also because the increased rate of stronger child protection legislation being introduced across Australia (see our earlier articles) may result in increased case management requirements, placing further pressures on already stretched child protection authorities.
Queensland struggles with technology
The Guardian reported that 600 suspected cases of child abuse reported by Queensland principals between January and July this year never made it through to the Education Department’s system due to a coding error in the program. According to The Guardian, the Education Department had upgraded their One School online portal for reporting in early January, and this is where the glitch occurred. This dangerous oversight led to a departmental staffer and a contractor being stood aside and a swift, and costly, police operation to check the status and safety of the children in the reports.
The ‘streamlining’ of the reporting system was the Queensland Government’s response to the Carmody Inquiry into the State’s child protection system which handed down its final report in 2013. Queensland Education Minister Kate Jones stated that she was ‘deeply sorry that this had happened’, and that ‘we owe it to Queensland students to do better than that’.
Subsequently, this month Ms Jones has also revealed that a further 27 reports from principals had been blocked by the Education Department’s system firewall. Shockingly, this week Ms Jones also announced that the initial number was incorrect, and it now appears approximately 300 reports between September 2013 and January this year had been blocked. All cases have been referred to the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services to be checked, however Ms Jones estimates that the further glitch in Queensland’s reporting system will cost the Queensland Government approximately $1 million in resources.
It is interesting to note that while the technology and reporting failures are being investigated and hopefully fixed, the Queensland Law Reform Commission is conducting a review of child protection mandatory reporting laws for the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector in that State (Review). The purpose of the Review is to determine whether legislative mandatory reporting requirements under the Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld) should be expanded to cover the ECEC sector, including long day care and family day care services and kindergartens. If the Commission recommends that such an expansion should occur, the Queensland Government may respond by increasing the legislative mandatory reporting scheme - creating the potential for further pressure to be placed on its child protection services.
The outcomes of the Royal Commission and the impact upon government resources
The possibility of new laws being introduced in Queensland following the Review is one of many current reform initiatives aimed at improving child protection in Australia.
We have recently written articles reporting on the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which may lead to widespread legislative and regulatory reform across Australia. Those areas of reform include:
The incredible work of the Royal Commission is not due to complete until 2017, when it releases its Final Report, due by 14 December 2017.
Even before the release of the Final Report, the States and Territories are implementing legislative changes to strengthen their child protection systems. The wave of legislative reform is expanding the legal duties of various organisations, including schools, to comply with the law and identify, act and report instances of child abuse. However, as the recent events in Queensland demonstrate, although organisations such as schools may be dedicating resources to ensuring that they meet their legal requirements to protect children, the State and Territory governments may not have the resources and systems in place to address the instances of child abuse reported in accordance with the new laws.
Given that further legislative reform is likely to occur leading up to and after, the release of Royal Commission’s Final Report, a potential crisis may occur if an increase in laws is not matched by an increase in resources and funding. Ultimately, the safety of children may be at stake if the government departments tasked with processing child abuse reports are unable to manage the current case load, let alone an increase in reports that may occur in response to further new laws.
Tasmania fails to check over 150 alerts
Queensland isn’t the only jurisdiction to have reported problems with the handling of child abuse reports this year. Tasmania has also discovered over 100 reported suspicions of child abuse that have slipped through the cracks of an under-funded and under-resourced system.
Earlier this month, Tasmania’s Human Services Minister Jacquie Petrusma confirmed in Parliament that 151 alerts about child abuse were ignored by the Department of Health and Human Services (Department) for up to 300 days. The error has revealed failures in the internal communications of the Department and while it is unclear exactly how these notifications went unchecked, chronic staff shortages are being blamed.
Tasmania’s Labour Government responded by moving a no confidence motion against Ms Petrusma this week because she had failed to provide further details explaining how the incident could have happened and why she wasn’t alerted to it sooner. Premier Will Hodgman has defended Ms Petrusma declaring that he has confidence in her ability as Human Services Minister and defeated the motion.
The bottom line
As the Queensland Education Minister Ms Jones has said, the Government owes it to students ‘to do better than this’. Ms Jones’ sentiments apply equally to Tasmania and the other State and Territory governments. The premise of a departmental online reporting system for child protection, like that in Queensland, is not flawed. However, if those online systems are unreliable it can leave children in harm’s way and school administrators (and other reporters of abuse) feeling helpless and frustrated. As the pace of child protection legislative reform gathers pace, it is the duty of the governments who are introducing those laws to ensure that their respective child protection services can meet the level of demand that will result.
In addition to imposing more reporting obligations on organisations such as schools, it has become clear that governments must also prioritise the strengthening of the internal systems designed to protect the children affected. If government reform is not matched by resources, their positive initiatives, and those of the Royal Commission, will lose their relevance and the safety of the children the laws are designed to protect will be affected.
