Context

In Managing child safety information (Report 17: 2014–15) we examined whether child safety information was secure, yet available to authorised people who provide child safety services.

The audit focused on whether:

• government and non-government organisations were efficiently sharing accurate child safety information

• agencies had appropriate physical and computerised security arrangements to maintain confidentiality of information.

We concluded that the department did not have the right balance between security and accessibility of child safety information.

Information sharing with other government and non-government organisations in the child safety service chain was neither efficient nor secure. And a lack of data integrity meant the department could not easily collect accurate information to report on service outcomes.

The department accepted all of the six recommendations we made.

Audit objective

In this follow-up audit, we assessed whether the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women has effectively implemented the recommendations we made in Managing child safety information (Report 17: 2014–15).

We also assessed whether the actions taken have addressed the underlying issues that led to our recommendations in that report.

What we found

We found that the department has made progress towards implementing most of the six recommendations, but has not effectively implemented all of the recommendations, we made in Managing child safety information (Report 17: 2014–15).

We assessed that one is fully implemented and five are partially implemented.

Our conclusions

We concluded that the considerable information available across organisations within the family support and child protection system is still not used as effectively as it could be to provide insights and improve outcomes for children in Queensland.

Through several initiatives, including new information systems for collecting, recording, maintaining and sharing child safety information, the department has made accessing some information easier. And it is more user-friendly for its own staff, non-government service providers and carers.

However, child safety information held across various parts of the family support and child protection system is still almost completely unintegrated. And as for automated information exchange, where it does occur, it is limited. There are plans for making the most significant child safety system change—replacing the Integrated Client Management System (ICMS)—but it has not happened yet.

Security of information is still an area needing further work. The department has implemented more secure means of information exchange, but they are not well used by department staff. It needs to do more to safeguard the security of information in its systems and in how it exchanges information with non-government service providers.