Child Protection Department ignores royal commission by failing to report on closed cases
The Nyland Royal Commission urged sweeping changes to South Australia’s child protection system, but almost three years on The Advertiser can reveal authorities have been ignoring a key recommendation.
The Child Protection Department has ignored a royal commission recommendation to declare how often it closes cases of suspected child abuse or neglect without taking any action.
Almost three years ago, Royal Commissioner Margaret Nyland found the practice was “widely used” and called for it to be phased out by August 2021. However, the department says it expects this to take almost a year longer.
In the meantime, Ms Nyland recommended reports be published every three months showing how often child protection staff have closed files – where suspected abuse or neglect was raised – without investigating or intervening “due to a lack of resources”.
The former Labor government accepted the recommendation “in principle” at the time but the department has not been publishing the information. It could not say, when asked by The Advertiser, if or when it might begin publishing such reports.
Department chief executive Cathy Taylor said work to stop closing cases without any action was “currently in the planning phase and is due to be completed by June, 2022”.
The State Ombudsman has previously described the number of cases closed without investigation as “simply staggering” and warned the practice was against child protection laws.
Examples have included reports of children missing school, going without food, being exposed to violence and drug abuse by a parent or sleeping rough.
Policy is meant to forbid closure without action in serious cases but, in practice, it happens frequently.
Opposition child protection spokeswoman Jayne Stinson said the department’s “failure” to publish regular reports left the public “in the dark about how many cases are being closed due to a lack of resources”.
This was unlikely to improve if the current Liberal Government persisted with plans to cut 115 full-time staff this year, she said.
Ms Stinson added it was “a real let down” that the department would not meet Ms Nyland’s 2021 deadline.
Data released by the department in January, following inquiries from The Advertiser, showed the proportion of cases closed without action had fallen from about 60 per cent in 2014-15 to 40 per cent in December, 2018.
A report released by Ombudsman Wayne Lines late last month again raised the alarm about the practice.
It examined concerns raised about siblings Amber Rose Rigney, 6, and Korey Lee Mitchell, 5, while in the care of their mother Yvette Rigney-Wilson in the years before all three were murdered by Ms Rigney-Wilson’s partner in May, 2016.
At least 11 reports of abuse or neglect were made to child protection authorities but just one investigation was launched.
The other concerns were dismissed as not meeting the criteria for intervention or closed without investigation because of an argued lack of resources.
Ms Taylor said the department was working on ways to refer cases to other departments or organisations, including non-government services, “to provide the most appropriate service response at the most appropriate time”.
She said the department’s “priority remains focused on the most serious and critical cases of abuse and neglect”.