Page 1596 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2017
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(c) report back to the Assembly by the last sitting day in August 2017 on the implementation of the six Glanfield Inquiry recommendations that relate to Decision Making, Quality Assurance and Oversight of CYPS in the ACT.”.
My amendment respects the intention and outcome sought by Mrs Kikkert’s motion, and I thank her for bringing the motion to the Assembly today. However, it seeks to correct the references to the relevant inquiries to make it clearer what they found and recommended and to broaden the scope of the reporting that the motion seeks from the government.
As a consequence of tragic family violence events that occurred in our community, in 2016 the government released three reports into family violence: Report of the inquiry: review into the system level responses to family violence in the ACT by Mr Laurie Glanfield; Findings and recommendations from the review of domestic and family violence deaths in the Australian Capital Territory by the Domestic Violence Prevention Council; and the ACT domestic violence service system final gap analysis report by the Community Services Directorate. The Glanfield report went, in part, to recommendations around improving quality assurance and accountability in the child and youth protection system.
The work of child and youth protection is some of the most complex and important work undertaken by government, as Mrs Kikkert has acknowledged. It is about the safety and wellbeing of children at all levels, and staff at all levels operate with a focus on the best interests of the children and young people. The work is emotional and difficult for all concerned. It is also highly contested and it is very closely scrutinised.
The government commissioned the Glanfield report in recognition that there was room for improvement in the system-level responses to family violence in the ACT and supported its recommendations in the same spirit. The ACT government has made a number of commitments to address the recommendations made by Mr Glanfield. The original motion, Mrs Kikkert’s motion, referred to one of those recommendations and commitments, specifically relating to a review of what decisions made by child and youth protection services—CYPS—should be the subject of either internal or external review.
My amendment acknowledges that there were six recommendations made in relation to chapter 7 of the report which covered decision-making, quality assurance and oversight of the child and youth protection system. In addressing those recommendations the ACT government, in its response, committed to: the establishment of a child and youth protection quality assurance and improvement committee to provide arms-length quality assurance and ensure compliance by statutory services; a case analysis team to undertake case analysis work on identified cases of children and young people with extensive involvement with statutory services; review of what decisions made by CYPS should be subject to either internal or external merits review—the recommendation that Mrs Kikkert has referred to; and make publicly available information about review rights and ensure this is provided to
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