Page 1036 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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MS BURCH: There is an inference that we were not aware of it. We started this task following the recommendations from the Public Advocate’s report. It is reflected—
Mr Hanson: That is not what the Auditor-General said.
MS BURCH: It is, if you read the detail in the Auditor-General’s report and again if you refer to the milestone review committee’s work. We accept and acknowledge that work needed to be done. We have started on that. We have actually scoped the work bigger than what the original assumptions were in response to the Public Advocate’s report, because the bigger, more complex piece of work was the best piece of work to do.
MADAM ACTING SPEAKER: Dr Bourke.
DR BOURKE: Minister, in your previous answer to Mr Wall, you mentioned a group of champions. Could you tell us more about that, please?
MS BURCH: I thank Dr Bourke for his interest in this. When you are embarking on such a significant change under the umbrella of an integrated management system, this will only be successful when you have people that are in the workplace, on the ground, that are going to use these tools on a day-to-day basis. We have put expressions of interest out to all the CPS workers and those that work within that area who would want to be involved in this quite significant piece of reform.
More people than we had chairs around the table in many ways put their hand up to be involved in this, because they saw the benefit to their own practice, the guidance to their own practice and improved supervision and decision support for them as individual workers. They also saw the bigger picture of improvement in the system and how it can reform and improve the system.
We do have a group of champions and I thank them for their work. I thank all of the staff over in CPS for the work they do, not only on the IMS but with what they do each and every day. I have said before and I will say it again: this is some of the hardest work in human services. It is complicated work. Just think how your day would start if your first phone call was to go to the house of a child that has been physically or sexually abused. It is just incomprehensible for most of us to say that is what we do, Monday to Friday, nine to five. But that is what those CPS workers do every day. So I take my hat off to them. If it means that I will stand here and respond to questions about the Auditor-General’s report, I will do that. But I will do that knowing that we are doing the reforms to make sure that we support them as best we can.
Schools—Catholic Education Week
DR BOURKE: My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. Minister, last week, Catholic schools celebrated Catholic Education Week. What activities did you attend in your capacity as minister for education? How does the ACT government support Catholic systemic schools in the ACT?
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