CHILD PROTECTION —
CASEWORKERS — WORKLOAD
1009. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the Leader of the House representing
the Minister for Child Protection:
I refer to the minister's
response on 10 September 2020 to question without notice 644, asked in the
other place, in which she stated, ''Since we have been in office,
between June 2017 and June 2020, the child protection workforce has increased
by over 18 per cent. That is the equivalent of over 158 FTEs'', and the
inconsistency of this response with the statement by the departmental social
worker at the child protection vigil at Parliament the night before, who said
that critical safety issues in child protection cases are being missed because
caseworkers are overloaded.
(1) Of the 158 FTEs, how many are frontline child protection
caseworkers?
(2) Will the
minister table the standard monthly workload management reports that are
generated to track child protection casework levels, from October 2019 to the
most recently available?
(3) Is the minister satisfied with the current child
protection staffing levels and caseloads?
(4) How many
additional new caseworkers does the government intend to employ in the next 12 months?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the
question.
(1) All 158
additional FTEs are frontline child protection workers and senior child
protection workers who manage a caseload. This figure does not include a range
of other frontline child protection and supporting roles, which do not carry a caseload,
but who work alongside these staff.
(2) Yes. I table the attached report.
[See paper 4317.]
(3) Yes. The management of child protection caseloads
within the Department of Communities is in accordance with the 2007 Western
Australian Industrial Relations Commission order.
(4) Funding
for new caseworkers is based on a cost-and-demand model. In collaboration with
Treasury, the Department of Communities has refreshed the cost-and-demand
model, which distributes child protection funding in response to geographical
need. This work has modernised the process that determines demand costs to
ensure that the resourcing required to deliver services in 2020 and beyond is
being met. For the period 2019–20,
the Department of Communities has allocated funding for an additional 41.6 FTE
caseworkers and senior caseworkers.
Further allocations will be undertaken as required and subject to the demand-based
funding. It is not possible at this time to provide an exact figure for the
increase over the next 12 months.