SA Child Protection Department boss Cathy Taylor has resigned

Embattled Child Protection Department boss Cathy Taylor has resigned in the wake of recent revelations about child deaths. The CP Minister has “wholeheartedly” thanked her for her service.

Besieged Child Protection Department boss Cathy Taylor has resigned.

Premier Peter Malinauskas said Ms Taylor had advised him of her resignation Friday morning and would finish in the role on April 28.

The state government will launch a “global recruitment process” to replace her, Mr Malinauskas said.

Ms Taylor has overseen the state’s under pressure child protection system since she was appointed by the previous Labor government in October 2016.

This week The Advertiser’s Save Our Kids campaign exclusively revealed almost 60 children who were known to the department have died in the past four years.

Chief Executive of the SA Department of Child Protection Cathy Taylor resigned on January 27. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

The campaign, launched in August, has been calling on the state government to deliver on five elements, including appointing a new Department for Child Protection (DCP) chief executive.

Ms Taylor is paid about $383,000 a year.

Asked in November if she should keep her job, Mr Malinauskas said: “I’ve got high expectations of my senior executive team, Ms Taylor included. I will continue to monitor performance of our chief executives very closely.”

In a statement released Friday, Ms Taylor said her time in the role “has been one of the most rewarding periods of my career”.

“The work we do requires significant expertise and commitment. It’s a job that our staff do day in, day out, driven by the desire to help those children and young people who are most vulnerable in our community,” she said.

“There needs to be a balance in celebrating the good work done by child protection staff as it can be incredibly difficult work.”

In a statement Child Protection Minister Katrine Hildyard said Ms Taylor had “consistently strived to make improvements amidst really challenging issues impacting South Australian children, young people and their families”.

“Child protection is a difficult area of public policy that requires deep personal commitment,” she said.

“I wholeheartedly thank Ms Taylor for her nearly seven years of dedicated service.”

Ms Taylor last spoke to media on Tuesday, responding to revelations in The Advertiser about the deaths of 58 children known to the department in the past four years.

During an interview on ABC Radio Adelaide that morning, she was asked about calls for her to be dismissed.

“I don’t think that’s a matter for any of us to comment on,” she said.

“I’m here to walk alongside my staff. I’m committed to doing this work, I’m going to continue to do this work and I welcome the opportunity.

“This has been my great professional passion for the best part of 25-plus years and it’s an honour to do child protection work.”

Earlier, in November, Ms Taylor was quoted in a report on the child protection system by NSW child protection bureaucrat Kate Alexander, as saying: “We are not a department of blame – we are a department of accountability. At the end of the day, I’m the most accountable person in the department as chief executive”.

Child Protection Minister Katrine Hildyard and Child Protection Department chief executive Cathy Taylor front a press conference responding to coronial inquest findings. Picture NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

Opposition Leader David Speirs said Ms Taylor’s resignation “probably isn’t a surprise to South Australians”.

“For months now the child protection department has been in a state of extreme crisis,” he said.

“It’s always a difficult portfolio … filled with challenges.

“There were clearly competence issues here.

“A change of leadership from a bureaucratic point of view is clearly in order.”

Mr Speirs said Ms Taylor’s resignation would leave the department “rudderless for some weeks or months into the future” and he argued “the minister (Katrine Hildyard) has to take charge”.

“I think the government has used Cathy Taylor as a scapegoat for a challenge that the minister was facing,” he said.

“That department remains in crisis. The minister needs to step up.”