Mr BAYLEY - To continue this theme on staffing levels, can you provide an update on the current number of vacant positions within the child safety service as a whole and, specifically, within the advice and referral line, and units managing out of-home care; and how this has changed over the last year?
Mr JAENSCH - I'd be happy to take those on notice.
Mr BAYLEY - You may need to take the next one on notice as well because I was also interested in how many new individuals have been employed to work in out of-home care over the past two years. Is that similarly on notice? And how many of these individuals remain within the department?
Mr JAENSCH - Can I just check on that? Are we able to provide numbers on that or are you talking about tracking individuals in and out?
Mr BAYLEY - I'm talking numbers, not individuals.
Mr BULLARD - I don't know that we'd be able to provide you with information about 'Mike's started and Mike's left'. It would be more data as to new recruits and separation, how many in and how many out.
Mr BAYLEY - That is fine, thank you very much. I will get that through to the Chair.
The commission of inquiry report found it hard to discern the role clinical practice consultants and educators play in the out of home care system. Can you tell us how many clinical practice consultants and educators are employed to work on out of home care?
Mr JAENSCH - We can get you a number. If you would like an explanation around how those roles work -
Mr BAYLEY - We are more interested in the numbers, thank you very much. We've got some context around how they actually work.
The last one in this space, perhaps is also on notice, is how many of these were assigned to case management and out of home care teams? And what is the average number of teams attached to each individual?
Mr JAENSCH - To each individual case?
Mr BAYLEY - The average number of cases attached to each individual case worker?
Mr JAENSCH - Is that number of cases per -
Mr BAYLEY - Per worker.
Mr JAENSCH - If you would be happy to put those in writing, I would be happy to take them on notice.
Mr BAYLEY - Absolutely, thank you.
Mr BAYLEY - Minister, to pick up on your pick up, so to speak, of Ms Dow's comments around budgets and adequacy of funding, I note that the former secretary of the Department of Communities was quoted in the commission of inquiry report as saying that the Government has been consistent in not providing funds to the department to implement change. As the report says, 'The former secretary cited this factor as fundamental to the slow progress towards improving systems in the department'. How many times has the department asked your Government for more money for out of home care? On how many of these occasions has the request been granted in full, how many times has it been granted in part, and how many times has it been refused?
You have a perplexed look on your face, minister, but these are the words of the former secretary, 'The Government has been consistent in not providing funds to the department to implement change.'
Mr JAENSCH - Our Government invested over $50 million in the new Strong Families Safe Kids reforms in our sector, which really did transform it. They have led to a sustained drop in the number of young people entering statutory care and an increase in the number of families who have been able to be supported to remain safe places for their kids. The advice and referral line as an entry point, recognising that the vast majority of concerns that are raised are people seeking help rather than reporting immediate danger to kids, has been fundamentally successful and as I mentioned before, we've increased the staffing for the Child Safety Service by around 40 per cent since we've been in government.
Every agency that I've had anything to do with as a minister puts up bids each year and every minister goes in to bat hard for them. That's to be expected out of a budget process and responsible budget management means that the Government has to make its allocations to cover the essentials, to make sure that we're meeting our priorities and our promises, so -
Mr BAYLEY - Do you know how many times the department asked for - has the department ever had its full budget claim met?
Mr JAENSCH - Yes. Its wildest dreams? I would say there are very few government agencies who have gone through a budget process getting everything they have asked for.
Mr BAYLEY - I guess because we're getting it straight from the secretary himself in his evidence to the commission of inquiry, when it comes to out-of-home care explicitly and specifically, how many times are you aware that the ask from the department hasn't been met in the budget allocation?
Mr JAENSCH - Okay. I'm not in a position to provide you with any definitive information that goes to Cabinet processes or the internal workings of a budget committee or anything like that, so I'm sorry, I won't be able to give you evidence of the -
Mr BAYLEY - Failures?
Mr JAENSCH - The events that you've been asking about. What I can reiterate is that we've grown the child safety system, we've reformed substantially and invested massively in the reform of that sector so far and we are preparing to do so again right now. As I said before, our department is resourced for there to be a child safety officer allocated for each young person in out-of-home care. What we lack at the moment is the workforce to be able to fill all those positions and therefore we've had to be innovative in how we've used the resources we do have to cover our priorities responsibly.
Mr BAYLEY - In recommendation 9.3 in point 4 the commission says that the Government, 'Should resource non government out-of-home care providers appropriately.' We've spoken to a number of those providers and they believe that this is not occurring now. There's some concern that children are receiving divergent outcomes based on the provider responsible for their care because the contracts for each provider include different funding arrangements. Have you heard those concerns direct from those providers? What's your response and also, what's your time line for getting all of those private providers onto satisfactory contracts so they can meet the needs of the children in their care?
Mr JAENSCH - Thank you. I wouldn't refer to them as private providers.
Mr BAYLEY - Non government.
Mr JAENSCH - Non government is the term we'd use. We will always listen to them. They're our partners, we rely on them and so do children and carers. As I mentioned earlier, there is a new financial model that will be developed that is based on meeting the needs of individual young people in care and also the needs or expectations of the carers and the care meeting new compliance standards for there to be training and development of the carers and those who work in the sector and the systems that manage them through the NGOs. There will need to be a new financial model for the sector as we go forward and achieve this transition to the NGO-driven care provision.
Mr BAYLEY - Will that new model prescribe different funding formulas depending on the needs of the child? Is that how you propose to -
Mr JAENSCH - It will be driven by the needs of the child and the expectations of the system to be compliant, registered, accredited, insured, monitored and delivering the highest standards of care.
Mr BAYLEY - How long do you think it'll take to migrate all of those non-government providers over to these new contractual arrangements and at the end of the day also migrate the children in government care across to them as well?
Mr JAENSCH - On 9.3, the contract management arrangements with providers, the commission has suggested a time frame of by 1 July 2026 and we've accepted that time frame. We note that with the transition of carers and cases to the non-government sector we need to plan and negotiate that so that it is a smooth transition and it minimises disruption and it doesn't push any providers beyond their capacity to ensure that they're providing a high level of care. The safety of young people is absolutely paramount.
Mr BAYLEY - Of course; that's good to hear, definitely. We have heard also some fears from the sector around - not so much poaching - but the transfer of staff depending on contract levels, ability to pay, incentivisations and so forth. Have you a mind to that and how are you going to address that through this migration so that there's not some serious sort of workforce fluctuations as part of this migration?
Mr JAENSCH - I have a couple of comments and then I'll pass to the secretary to speak about the sort of business approach to it, but non-government service provision isn't new, it's a part of our current operation for out-of-home care. A lot of families rely on it and it works very well and we have excellent relationships with those providers. As I understand it, the financial model and the basis for procurement or commissioning would be discussed and developed with the sector and known to all, so it was a consistent approach as we worked with the sector. There would be differences obviously between providers based on their own business models and the ways they work, and the way they might specialise in different areas of care as well, or in different areas of the state, which might also affect the cost of delivery of services. I will ask the secretary if he has anything to add to that.
Mr BAYLEY - And whether you envisage brand-new providers entering the sector?
Mr BULLARD - A couple of points on that. One is market readiness, so we need to ensure, as you've alluded to, that we've got a robust market. We don't want to be in competition with NGOs, we want to be in partnership with them, and certainly that's a model that we have worked on with the 30 per cent, 40 per cent of foster carers that are supported by NGOs to date. There are elements in the report such as the workforce strategy, the training of foster carers, the monitoring and oversight and some of the policy work, where the commission is very clear that that is not government doing it for itself, that is something that needs to be shared across all parties who are caring for children and young people and that absolutely will be at the centre of what we do. We want to be connected and we want to work in strong partnership around a child; we don't want to be in competition.
Mr BAYLEY - How many contracts do you have now with non-government providers and how many do you envisage needing to have when this process is complete?
Mr BULLARD - At the moment, Mr Bayley, I'm advised we have 52 grants with non government providers in relation to children and families and an additional three in relation to family violence. I don't know how many we'll need because there might be a consolidation of some of those grants to make the administration easier, but what we do know is that we want to be working with those NGOs around what those grant arrangements look like into the future.
Mr BAYLEY - So that's 57 grants, not necessarily -
Mr BULLARD - There are 52 grants but there are not 52 providers because we buy different special care packages. We might buy foster care, we might buy some a transition to independence, intensive family support, so we're purchasing across a spectrum.
