System outage at Department for Child Protection left staff unable to access important case information, union told

Child protection staff have told their union how a system outage left them unable to access important information to properly look after vulnerable kids last week.

Child protection staff have told their union an outage of their case management system meant they were unable to properly look after vulnerable children and families last week.

Staff were reportedly unable to access the system for two days meaning they couldn’t accurately assess new reports due to their inability to access existing information.

The Public Service Association has confirmed it was aware the Case Management System (C3MS) was down all day Friday in at least one metro office.

The union has also confirmed it was aware of the system crashing several times at the Child Abuse Report Line call centre on Wednesday.

Members have reportedly told the union IT issues have worsened in the past five years.

“DCP staff are simply unable to do their jobs properly as long as they have to work with this unreliable system,” Public Service Association general secretary Natasha Brown said.

“Our members are totally frustrated and are telling us the safety of children is being compromised by their not being able to access and provide information to make assessment.”

It’s feared a computer glitch may have meant vulnerable children weren’t properly looked after. Picture: File

Ms Brown said employees have been asked to work overtime, including weekends, to lessen the pressure on the system during work hours.

“This is no way to run a department responsible for caring for our most vulnerable children,” she said.

Ms Brown said the child protection system “must invest in upgraded ICT infrastructure as a priority”.

“Bandaid measures just won’t cut it.”

The Department for Child Protection has confirmed staff experienced “intermittent unavailability” of the computer system, but denied information on the system was compromised.

“DCP is working on the issues and has identified and implemented measures to optimise the system’s performance,” a department spokeswoman said.

“The safety of children and young people remains our priority.”

The department said they had prepared a business case for the government about how to improve the system.

Josh Teague, opposition spokesman for child protection, said “we cannot afford to have a faulty system” when “our child protection system is in crisis”.

“We need assurances from Minister Hildyard that every single child was safe during the serious system meltdown, and a guarantee these concerning outages won’t occur again,” he said.

“Under resourced DCP staff are already being pushed to the brink and this meltdown would have been a stressful time while they essentially lost line of sight of children whose safety is at risk.”

During question time at parliament on Thursday Katrine Hildyard, minister for child protection, said the system has experienced some “functionality issues”.

“I have been advised that the department is working really hard with the external vendor on the issues and that remedial action has been undertaken to improve system performance,” she said.

“The department has really strong business continuity processes in place to work around any disruptions to the system and that important and new information is recorded in really secure ways.”

Ms Hildyard also said the government is developing a “very detailed business case for an improved case management system”.