AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Rachel Browne
The NSW government’s child abuse reporting hotline is clogged with thousands of less serious cases that do not warrant high level investigation, a royal commission has heard.
Department of Family and Community Services secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter told the inquiry the large volume of less serious reports affected resources available for the more severe cases, known as “risk of significant harm” reports.
Almost half the reports made to the FaCS child protection helpline in 2016 did not meet the criteria for statutory action, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.
“We have effectively 100 child protection caseworkers receiving reports of risk that don’t clear the statutory threshold and we really want to try to free that effort up to be more effective in keeping children safe,” Mr Coutts-Trotter said.
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