Safety of kids at risk: Labor

THE State Government needs to employ new child safety officers to tackle the child protection crisis, Labor spokesman Josh Willie says.

The call came after the Sunday Tasmanian revealed Child Safety Service figures that showed that at least 282 children were unallocated to child safety officers.

The figures showed that nearly 70 per cent of child safety officers in the North and Northwest were managing more than 15 children.

Mr Willie said that not one dollar of the $16.7 million committed by the State Government would go towards the employment of another child safety officer.

Premier Will Hodgman replaced Jacquie Petrusma with Roger Jaensch as Human Services Minister after the election. “In 2015 the Hodgman Government conceded the child protection system was broken,” Mr Willie said.

“Well here we are three years later and the situation is worse.

“We have child safety officers who are at breaking point.

“They [child safety officers] are unable to have the time they need to make good decisions, they don’t have the re- sources they need to work with families and there are vulnerable children in our community who are in perilous situations and this government does not care,” he said.

Mr Jaensch said the Government had committed $51 million to its redesign of the child protection system and employed an extra 40 staff in the last term of government.

Treasurer Peter Gutwein said the Government had increased funding for the child protection system every year.

“We have had to work very hard to redesign a whole of government system, and that system is working,” he said.

Mr Gutwein said the system was broken in 2015 after 16 years of Labor and Green government until 2014.

The CSS figures from March 27 revealed: 187 INTAKE cases were to be allocated statewide. 28 RESPONSE cases were to be allocated. 67 CHILDREN were yet to be allocated case managers. 50 PER CENT of intake workers in the North-West and 33 per cent in the North were over their “trigger point” for a discussion about their caseload. 69 PER CENT of case managers in the North-West and 49 per cent in the South were over their trigger point.