Closed No Action: Why Child Protection Department stops pursuing some cases

Authorities will not say if any of the reports made about the welfare of six-year-old Charlie were closed without proper investigation. But it’s a practice that’s resulted in other deaths in the past.

Authorities will not say if any of the reports made about the welfare of a six-year-old girl who died of suspected neglect were closed without proper investigation.

People who knew Charlie and her Munno Para family said they raised concerns with the Child Protection Department before her death last week.

A government whistleblower also told The Advertiser there were more than 500 case notes on the family, including about school attendance.

However, neither the Child Protection Department nor Child Protection Minister Katrine Hildyard would confirm whether any of the reports were closed without taking further action.

Suspected child neglect victim Charlie, 6.

Investigations by The Advertiser have previously revealed that about one-third of reports that the department deemed to require investigation were instead closed, often because of a lack of resources.

It is a practice that has been revealed in the histories of other children who have died in South Australia, including siblings Amber Rigney, 6, and Korey Mitchell, 5, in 2016, and Chloe Valentine, 4, in 2012.

In their cases, reports were made before their deaths, which were under differing circumstances, that child protection authorities deemed as requiring further investigation – but the files were closed because of a lack of resources.

Chloe Valentine, who died in 2012.

Korey Mitchell and Amber Rigney died in 2016.

They included reports that children were chronically absent from school, going without food, exposed to violence or drug use, living in squalor or without a safe place to sleep. Coronial inquests and Ombudsman investigations into the deaths slammed the practice, known as Closed No Action, and called for it to end.

The department says it responds to all urgent cases within 24 hours but critics warn that concerns which at first seem less dire are escalating without attention.

Ms Hildyard could not say on Wednesday how she planned to stop the practice of closing cases without action but committed that “as part of systems change this is an area that I will look at”.

“I am deeply determined to rigorously examine and change systems and processes so that they better support children and young people and their care and safety,” Ms Hildyard said.

“Change is crucial and I am committed to working with others to make it.”

Minister for Child Protection Katrine Hildyard. Picture NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier.

In opposition, Ms Hildyard said it was “abundantly clear … that children’s lives are at risk due to under-resourcing”.

Each year, tens of thousands of these red flags are fielded by child protection workers but the department has conceded about one-third “are not proceeded with”.

Based on latest available figures this would mean that about 12,600 of about 38,400 reports in 2020-21 would have been closed without taking any action.

The rate has fallen from almost 60 per cent in 2016-17 to almost 33 per cent in 2020-21.

In late 2016, the comprehensive Nyland royal commission lashed this practice and recommended the department “phase out the closure of intakes and files due to a lack of resources” within five years.

Commissioner Margaret Nyland also called for the department to publish data every three months “on the rate of closures that are due to a lack of resources”. Neither recommendation has been met.

At the time, the Nyland report said “evidence to the commission indicated the existence of a large cohort of children who are the subject of notifications and need assistance but do not receive a response until their situation is critical”.

“Any inaction on the basis of an overwhelming workload is patently unacceptable, and leaves many children living in risky and unsafe conditions.

“The opportunity to intervene early is lost. In many cases, the opportunity to gather evidence of abuse or neglect is also lost, meaning from an evidentiary perspective – though surely not from the child’s perspective – it is as though the event never happened,” the report said.