Child Protection Reform Update – July 2009

The Department’s child protection reform agenda was the result of the Review of the Department for Community Development (the review) released in March 2007, with implementation of the review’s recommendations occurring in three phases.

Reform phase one
The first phase of establishing the Department for Child Protection and the Department for Communities sought to regain the Department’s specific focus on child protection. Twelve review recommendations were completed during the first phase, which was completed on 30 December 2007.

Reform phase two
Child protection reform completed its second phase on 30 June 2009, which saw the completion of scoping and implementation of 40 child protection reform projects.

Reform phase two sought to deliver reform by defining projects and realising outputs that addressed the 58 remaining review recommendations. These recommendations have been fully or partly implemented through 40 projects and their 128 deliverables, 272 milestones and 561 activities.

Reform phase two saw a large number of people from within and outside of the Department working on projects, including eight lead project executives; 25 project managers; more than 400 working, steering or reference group members who were supported by three principal project managers, 26 project officers and four consultancies.

During phase two, over 80% of the total reform project work was completed and 63% of all projects were completed.

Table 1 details the project titles against their review recommendations and their status at 30 June 2009.

Table 2 illustrates the timelines of the 40 projects and their relationship to the three project phases.

Table 3 summarises the outcomes achieved by the completed reform projects and those that will be achieved on completion of the remaining projects.

Reform phase three
Phase three of the child protection reform agenda, commencing in July 2009, seeks to embed each the outputs of each reform project into everyday Departmental practice and culture.

Tasks during this phase include the completion of the remaining reform projects, and importantly, include an ongoing audit of reform performance and measurement of benefits realisation.

All areas of the Department for Child Protection are responsible for implementation of reform phase three.

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