Child Story – Minister wants more answer from FACS – August 2017 (PDF version)

Community Services Departmental Committee Chair Brendan McMenamin, Assistant General Secretary Troy Wright and Industrial Officer Carmel McKeough met with the Minister for Family and Community Services, the Hon Pru Goward MP at Parliament House on 2 August 2017. Deputy Secretaries John Hubby and Simone Walker and Program Director, Child Story Lisa Alonso Love were also in attendance.

The PSA conveyed to the Minister that the implementation of Child Story is too important to take unnecessary risks at this late stage. Child Story is due to go live between 31 October to the end of November 2017. The Department plans to have release 1 of Child Story implemented across NSW with staff trained and using the new system. The PSA expressed concerns the introduction of such an important system as Child Story so close to Christmas and the peak holiday period was unwise. The PSA highlighted the debacle with OneSAP which went live just before last Christmas (also through Accenture).

The PSA also advised the Minister the four FACS teams who currently support KIDS did not expect that their jobs would be on the line as part of Go Live. We argued the current staff have a great deal of expertise and corporate knowledge and need to be retained during and after the transition to Child Story without the added anxiety of a restructure. We also advised the Minister that, given the tight timeframes for implementation, to replace the existing experienced support teams is an unwise decision and unnecessary risk which may undermine the successful roll-out of Child Story.

We recommended to the Minister that the restructure should be at the very least deferred until 12 months post Go Live of release 1 and release 2.

The PSA also advised the Minister the Department had to be realistic. Under the current proposal, those staff who do not get a job in the new support teams can be retained by the Department up to June 2018. The Minister acknowledged the obvious; there will be a morale problem among those who do not have ongoing roles in the new structure, but are expected to stay and pass on their knowledge to new staff. This is not the optimum way to manage such significant reform.

We also expressed our concern about the outsourcing to Accenture. The Department stressed field staff will not deal directly with Accenture, as that will be the role of the new support teams. The PSA further advised two weeks for formal User Acceptance Testing was completely inadequate. We again took the opportunity to express our concerns about data security given that a third party will now have access to sensitive data about children, young people, parents and carers.

The Minster listened to all our issues and expressed her appreciation for bringing them to her attention. She is now seeking further advice from the Department about the details of the restructure and implementation. Minister Goward recognised the primary importance of a smooth transition and wanted further detailed information from the Department to alleviate her concerns.

If you have concerns or experience problems with the implementation of Child Story please contact your delegate or you may wish to ring the Member Support Centre on 1300 772 679 in the first instance. Your matters will be escalated to one of the PSA’s industrial officers.

Ask your colleagues to JOIN the PSA online HERE. Your Union will be in touch with members throughout this process and provide you with updates.