Authorities 'don't know whereabouts of kids in care'

Although the latest report into the system by Auditor General Maxine Cooper acknowledged that the embattled care network was improving, the audit found that children placed in long-term care might never receive a visit from a care and protection worker and that monitoring of out-of-home care was poor.

The AG was particularly concerned that top Community Services Directorate officials could not rely on their own systems to tell them where each of the 573 children in their care was at any given time, even during school hours.

"Although the Directorate had accurate information on the location of children and young people in kinship care, which it directly manages, information on which school some of the children and young people attended was inaccurate," Dr Cooper wrote.

"For children and young people in residential placements managed by community service providers, information on their location and schooling was accurate on the Directorate's system.

"However, and more importantly, for some children or young people in foster care, information on their location in the Community Services Directorate's system was inaccurate and has to be gained through contacting community service providers who manage the out-of-home care placements on behalf of the Director General."

Elsewhere in the report it was acknowledged that three overseas recruitment drives for social workers had helped ease the pressure on the system and that the adoption of "a 'single caseworker' model in Protection Services in April 2012 is a significant improvement and once fully implemented should reduce the number of caseworkers who work with an individual child or young person thereby providing a greater sense of stability."

The auditor also noted that more than 12,400 "concern reports" were received in 2011-2012, up 70 per cent from 2004-2005, when 7,275 reports were lodged despite the population of children in the ACT growing by just 3.6 per cent in the same period.