Residential care costs could face $7b blow out
Unless there is immediate reform, residential care for vulnerable children could cost taxpayers $7 billion a year, the leading safety body warns.
Residential care housing a state’s most vulnerable children could cost taxpayers more than $7 billion as the number of kids requiring placement surges.
The Queensland Family and Child Commission has modelled that at current rates where the number of kids in residential care has grown by 85 per cent over five years, the cost will also balloon.
There are more than 2000 children in residential care, but this number is expected to continue growing with an extra 4000 kids coming into placement by 2030.
Queensland has the largest number of kids in residential care, accounting for 40 per cent of Australia’s placements despite only having 21 per cent of children in care nationally.
Residential care currently costs Queensland $1 billion a year, a surge from $200 million in 2015, but could increase to $7 billion by 2030.
“Our child protection system is at a tipping point, and we can’t continue to pour money into a system that is compounding trauma for children and failing to gain community trust,” Commissioner Luke Twyford said in a statement.
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“It’s clear we can use the money better.”
One child under 12 years old enters residential care every two-and-a-half days in Queensland, despite the system being dubbed a last resort.
The alternative is foster and kinship care, which the commission has found to be declining despite more carers being recruited.
Children also explained the residential care experience with one quoted in the report saying it had been nine years since they had seen their younger siblings.
The report detailed the failures compounding on the system, starting with the government’s lack of planning for capacity or quality.
This leads to provider capacity diminishing, with organisations stopping care due to unsustainable funding, but then the number of kids entering care remains sky-high so the government resorts to spot contracts at ad hoc premium rates.
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Some of these last-minute placements include kids staying at hotels to fill the gaps in capacity.
One child said the residential care wasn’t expecting them to move, so they were put in a “random room” without a door.
“Later had to add a door to the room. I’m so glad we have a door now,” the child said.
Twyford said this shows the system is not simply subject to a funding issue, it’s a design failure.
“Without a deliberate shift toward stewardship, strategic contracting, and outcomes-based investment, the system will continue to grow in cost while failing the children it’s meant to protect,” he said.
The commission recommended focusing on early intervention, multi-year funding, clear practice frameworks, a commitment to workforce capability and more regular publishing of data.
A 17-month, $20 million Commission of Inquiry has begun in Queensland, probing the child safety system’s failures and the damage caused, and recommending changes to better protect vulnerable children.
Headed by former Federal Court judge Paul Anastassiou KC will look at the gross over-representation of Indigenous children in residential care, the links to the youth justice system and funding arrangements.
-with AAP
