The Victorian Ombudsman's Report on Child Protection released in September last year makes interesting reading. The report is particularly scathing about the new software that has been introduced for case mana. The software was estimated to cost under $30 million but ended up costing $95 million.

A sample of the comments on the software set out below is typical of the opinion of the software (CRIS):

“It became apparent through my interviews with senior child protection program staff that the implementation of CRIS with its inadequate functionality substantially increased the time taken to meet the administrative requirements of child protection work.

Regional managers were asked to comment on the impact of CRIS on the child protection program. One said:

… the amount of time that people who have an expertise in being able to assess a family or a child, spend in administrative requirements of that task, is absolutely onerous.

Another regional manager stated that CRIS was so complicated that it caused many issues within their region, in particular for staff moving to different teams within the program. They stated that recording information in CRIS took a long time and it was something that ‘a stretched workforce doesn’t really need’.

Another manager stated that child protection workers were required to have ‘shadow systems’ in order to keep track of the progress of their cases and important dates such as when the matter was next due in the Children’s Court. The manager said that there did not seem to be a way to get that information ‘onto one screen easily’ using CRIS.

A rural regional manager expressed concerns for their staff because CRIS had:

… both increased the workload for child protection staff as well as increased the frustration and stress levels for staff, because just nothing is easy on the system

The Community and Public Sector Union informed my office that staff had reported concerns 148. regarding CRIS since its introduction. The Community and Public Sector Union’s submission to me stated:

Staff report that since the introduction of the CRIS system, workload has increased threefold. Staff find CRIS time consuming and often unreliable. There have been reports of CRIS losing case notes, problems logging in and time delays in generating reports. CRIS adds to the workload pressures already felt by staff. Staff feel that the time resources that need to be allocated to keeping CRIS up to date detracts from the time been able to be spent face to face with clients, ensuring children’s safety.

One regional child protection manager said staff found that the search function available on CRIS was not as reliable as it was on CASIS. The manager said the deficiency in the search function compromised the ability to accurately locate a child’s details.

It is obvious from this report it is going to cost the Victorian Government a lot more than $95 million to get the software right. Indeed the are indications that it may scrap the software altogether and purchase another off the shelf solution that has demonstrated that it is fit for the purpose.”

In the light of this it is hard to understand why the South Australian Government, which prides itself on its economic management credentials has entered into an arrangement to buy the same software.