On the three issues, the letter, challenging my figures and mentioning that a number of the files were known, it is one matter to be known but another if one does not actually do anything with it. That is why I used the phrase, "the status of which was unclear". We need to pull all of that together and cross-refer it. They are saying that staff had raised resource issues and they had, but the resourcing in Laois-Offaly is no better or no worse than anywhere else. I would contend that was also a third aspect connected with the union, which was not in the letter, which is that we have been discussing with staff and with the union the question of reform, improvement and investment through redirected resources in how they are supported.
In response to Deputy Troy, of course, the word "file" is loose. We are pulling all of the information together. Often it can be pieces of information about the same children. They all have been screened but I cannot yet report the figures to the committee because they are still being cross-referred. Clearly, many of the 822 Garda notifications will be the same as those of school principals or staff from the health service. Clearly, not being a responsive service, as Deputy Sean Fleming described, is unacceptable. I do not wish to be too technical in terms of language, but they have only been screened and they have not been assessed. A number of them have been deemed urgent and they have moved on. A number of them will now be assessed.
We talk about staff coming from outside the area so that the casework can be dealt with. I readily acknowledge that they have come from other tasks and that is not sustainable. It is sustainable for this because it has to be dealt with. If we did not do it, and the new duty team and others dealt with this, they could deal with the backlog and lo and behold another backlog would emerge. There are things going on in parallel.
I referred to pilot work. What I want to do, and I will be making a business case to Government, is to have a flexible resource that can go in when an area is in difficulties because of staffing or whatever and sort it out while we stay apace with the 15 referrals from Portlaoise that come in on a daily basis.
I agree that being as unclear as we were is unacceptable. There are practice and management issues. I take guidance from the Chair. I need the discussions to be objective and constructive. There are ongoing processes. People will be held to account. However, in terms of fair process, it is not appropriate to discuss that here.
In response to Deputy Troy, as I have already stated, fundamentally, there should have been a better service in Laois-Offaly - again, I look to Deputy Fleming's testimony - irrespective of the resources. There are resource limits. We report on a monthly basis on the measure of the pressure. The report on the measure of the pressure in February stated that there were 7,920 cases awaiting allocation. These cases are held in that monitoring way across the country. We believe that a number of these cases could have been closed or that the thresholds had not been fully applied. The director of quality assurance has concluded a review and that is where we get the figure of 88%. The remaining 12% should not even be in the system. They do not register as needing social work assistance. Some within the 88% could be diverted to other community organisations, such as Barnardos, the Daughters of Charity and so on. That is our model of work.
Important points have been raised by Senator van Turnhout about historic abuse cases, which require different skills and perhaps we should be looking at developing specialist teams. Within our overall cases that have not been fully allocated, there are several hundred such cases.
In regard to the actual number of cases being held by duty teams and not allocated, we believe the number is just over 5,000.
I want to face members on the issues of Laois-Offaly, which was not just a resource issue. I am on record as saying we have done well. Following the start-up costs and insufficient additional investment, although our budget increased, it did not meet last year's expenditure. Some budget adjustments are still going on. There are budget pressures of two sorts - first, by international standards what we invest in children services is less than elsewhere and second, we have set up from scratch a brand new organisation without additional resources. It was necessary to do this because the country does not have many resources. We are talking about moving from survival to sustainability and that requires modest investment to make our efforts sustainable. We are going in the right direction. We need support.
Some 13 of the 17 areas have had a child protection inspection from HIQA. Some four inspections still have to happen, one of these is the midlands. We have done national audits. We have good knowledge. We have implemented the service framework and we have restructured elsewhere. The discussions in this instance were protracted. I want to get to the stage where we are a learning organisation that self-evaluates. We are having a consultation about quality assurance. The worst thing that can happen after a HIQA inspection is to be surprised. We should know our services better than anybody else. I have confidence in the director of quality assurance to do this. I can understand that Deputy Troy might not have confidence in him. I fully respect that the Minister, as he informed people, reserves his position. HIQA will conduct an inspection or an investigation shortly. I am in no doubt about that. It would be foolish not to share everything transparently because it will see it anyway.
Those are the issues of resources. The staff, including their share of the Ryan posts, is just over 80. There are 79 staff and one vacancy. There are some on leave, including in the manner referred to. The experienced additional staff are to ensure we can go forward. We are getting staff, who know how to screen, from other areas. I agree this is not sustainable, but I think we can learn from that and see if we can set up a capacity to intervene elsewhere.
We work with the Garda Síochána on notifications. The gardaí are now our most effective partners. They apply the guidelines on Children First extremely well and they have the PULSE system. They can give us more detail. I am looking for their support for that.
We need a system here. It is not the lack of IT that has caused this but the lack of IT has not helped. There has been no IT investment in the midlands, with shared desktops and lack of databases. It is a paper and pencil system, which gives rise to particular risks. We got no transfer of resources or a revenue budget for IT. We are still dependent on the HSE, which has its own priorities and reforms. We fall to the bottom of the queue. There were 270 IT staff in the HSE and none transferred to us.
