Community Services Minister Joy Burch published a progress report yesterday in response to last October's Public Advocate's review, which called for better management of children at risk of violence, trauma or neglect.

But the Canberra Liberals have described the improvements to protection services as ''piecemeal'' and accused the government of trying to play catch-up in an election year.

The October review came after revelations that five children had been inappropriately housed in the old Ginninderra police station with no beds, no running hot water and inadequate access to electricity.

An investigation by ACT Public Advocate Anita Phillips found that eight children had been sent to the property and that 24 youngsters had been inappropriately placed in the care of a non-government agency, which had not been qualified or vetted for such work.

Ms Burch said yesterday that significant progress had been made to improve the management of protection services, staff recruitment and the handling of complaints.

Thirty new foster care places have been funded for Anglicare - which was not the agency that placed the children in the police station - a reception centre has been established for children waiting for emergency out-of-home care and a senior director has been appointed to oversee quality control and the procurement of out-of-home care providers.

Other improvements listed in the progress report include the commencement this month of a support program for kinship carers, a review of transport and supervision services for children in care, and the recruitment of 25 new staff members at Child and Protection Services.

Ms Burch published her report yesterday before stage two of the Public Advocate's review, which is soon to be completed.

''Our response to Stage 1 recognised the need for system-wide reforms, including improvements to management capability, staff recruitment, complaints handling and stakeholder consultation,'' she said.

''The government will look carefully at the recommendations arising from Stage 2 of the Public Advocate's review and look at ways to continue to enhance the care and protection system.''

Canberra Liberals MLA Vicki Dunne said the additional foster care placements and the new reception centre were ''pleasing'' improvements.

But the opposition family and community services spokeswoman said the steps in Ms Burch's report were not enough to fix a ''broken'' system, for which sweeping changes had been recommended since the Vardon Report in 2004.

Mrs Dunne said: ''I think what we're seeing here is the department and the Minister trying to position themselves so when the second stage of this review comes out, they can say 'we're already doing this and that'.

''It's a piecemeal approach after 11 years of neglect, and it's in the run-up to an election before which there will be two more reports that are likely to be fairly critical of the system.''

But Ms Burch said the Public Advocate had acknowledged, in a letter to The Canberra Times, that she had been ''most impressed with the improvements to the system that have been put in place by the Community Services Directorate'' since last year's review.

''The Public Advocate has recognised the efforts the Community Services Directorate has made following her interim report, and it is disappointing that Mrs Dunne cannot do the same,'' Ms Burch said.