The addresses of hundreds of vulnerable children and young people are missing from the Victorian government’s child protection database, according to a report by the state’s auditor general.
The report, tabled in parliament on Wednesday, found the IT system used by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) was “incomplete, inaccurate and inconsistent” and “does not readily give the most current and complete information on vulnerable Victorian children”.
“It also does not consistently provide an auditable trail of information to confirm that DFFH’s decisions are always in a child’s best interest,” it said.
The audit found some 462 children did not have a primary address recorded on file, while 288 children’s addresses had “postcode errors” and 171 were listed as living at an “unknown address”.
Some 200 children had multiple dates of birth recorded on the database, including one who had six different dates of birth, while another child’s file showed they had been enrolled in their first year of school for 10 years.
There were also several gaps in children’s health information on file, including their immunisation records or if they had a disability, complex medical need or NDIS plan, putting them at risk of not receiving care they required.
In 155 instances, files were not updated following court proceedings related to a child’s welfare.
The auditor general report said high caseloads and growing demand for child protection services in Victoria was limiting child protection workers’ ability to update files in a timely way.
Issues with the department’s IT system have been raised as early as 2009, when the ombudsman raised concerns about its ability to meet the child protection system’s needs, and as recently as last week, when it found the state had one of the country’s weakest systems to screen adults who work with children.
The latter investigation was sparked by reports a former youth worker, Alexander Jones, used his log-in to a government database to access private information about the state’s vulnerable children. Jones was last year convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy, known by the alias Zack, who was listed on the database.
The auditor general report found at least 63 staff members whose accounts should have been deactivated due to inactivity were still able to log in to the system.
The opposition child protection spokesman, Matthew Bach, who began his life in foster care before being adopted, said the report proved the government had “dropped the ball on child protection”.
“It is inexcusable that such basic information like a home address is missing from the system. How are you supposed to help kids if you literally don’t know where they live?” he said.
“Because of these failures, many kids are at risk of not getting access to the health services they need, or they are being put in contact with people that court orders demand they shouldn’t see. The ramifications are very serious.”
The auditor general report made three recommendations to improve the quality of child protection data, all of which have been accepted by the DFFH.
The government also announced a $26.7m package to boost the number of case support workers and upgrade IT systems immediately following the report’s tabling. This included $13m to hire 70 more staff to help reduce the workload of child protection practitioners and $11m for “immediate upgrades to the IT systems”.
Almost $2m will be spent on “planning for a replacement of the entire child and family services IT platform to ensure it reflects best practice”.
Another auditor general report, also released on Wednesday, found child protection workers remain “under-resourced, under-supervised, and under pressure”, despite efforts by the department to improve support.
The reports were among 52 tabled in parliament on Wednesday – the last parliamentary sitting day before the Victorian election in November.
