Child Protection Screening

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion. Can the minister provide an update on the management of screening for employment and volunteers?

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer is warned for the second and final time. The minister.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:34): I am pleased to inform the house that the screening unit within the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion is implementing a number of process and technology improvements to improve the delivery of screening services to employees and volunteers.

Over the past 18 months, the screening unit has drastically reduced applications that are over 30 business days. Currently, 98 per cent of applications received by the screening unit are being processed within 30 business days and 91 per cent within 15 business days. Improvements are the result of a dedicated effort by the screening unit to improve systems and processes. One such improvement is the online application form, which has been operating since 28 July 2015.

So far, the screening unit has received around 14,000 applications online and more than 2,500 organisations have registered to submit their applications online. The online application form results in faster processing due to the removal of manual data entry errors. In addition, the screening unit is continuing to progress further systems reforms to improve functionality for organisations. The first part of stage 2, the organisation portal, is about to start. This enables organisations registered with the screening unit to search for people-based particular information.

A pilot of the organisation portal started in early April 2016, with the portal being available to a sample of around 15 organisations, including: the Department for Education and Child Development; the Catholic diocese; the University of South Australia; the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure; and AnglicareSA. The functionality will be available to organisations registered and using the services of the DCSI screening unit later this month. Feedback so far has been positive, with stakeholders describing the function as being helpful and very easy to use.

The next step which the government is undertaking is continuous monitoring, which will enable new offences to be identified on an ongoing basis instead of the current system, which only provides a snapshot of a person's history at the start of the three-year life span of the clearance. The new system will align South Australia with other jurisdictions and, once implemented, means South Australia will be the first and only jurisdiction with continuous monitoring of both criminal history and child protection information.

DCSI is leading the development and implementation of the continuous monitoring system in South Australia, in partnership with South Australia Police and the Department for Education and Child Development. The system is expected to go live in mid-2017.