At-risk kids waiting for social workers

By ANNE BESTON

More than 3000 children in danger of abuse have not been assigned a social worker.

The 3143 unallocated cases nationwide is over a third higher than normal.

Child, Youth and Family Services delivery general manager Ken Rand said some low priority cases could have waited up to a year without seeing a social worker.

But he said initial work to investigate the safety of the child would have been done.

Child advocate Dr Ian Hassall called the figures "insupportable."

"Child, Youth and Family are in a state of crisis.

"It's not good enough to say they work in a very difficult area, there is something fundamentally wrong with the system and the set up," Dr Hassall said.

In August, a record 3022 cases were reported to the service.

Auckland topped the list at 651, followed by Hamilton with 507 and Rotorua and South Auckland with 310 and 312 respectively.

The department admits that urgent and "low urgency" cases are not being looked at quickly enough.

Mr Rand could not give figures on how often or for how long some cases were waiting.

The department said the waiting list was regrettable and that media coverage focusing on the deaths of children was behind the rise in notifications.

Critical and very urgent cases were being responded to "within required timeframes" but were on the increase, Mr Rand said.

"What we are seeing is a greater level of difficulty of cases and more cases being presented that come into that critical response requirement."

Mr Rand said staff turnover was "a little up on what we have had" at 12.5 per cent.

He said recruitment and retention of staff was an issue, but the department also needed to investigate whether the high number of notifications was an on-going trend.

He said a detailed internal review of services was being done and should be completed within a week.

Commissioner for Children Roger McClay said most of the children who had not yet been given a social worker were probably safe but, "if we don't check on them we will have another death on our hands."

He had suggested to the department that if the caseload was too big for it to handle, other agencies should be called in to help out. One of those agencies was the police.

Social Services Minister Steve Maharey said he was concerned about the unallocated cases and would discuss the issue of waiting lists with the department.

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