FACS Child Story bulletin – August 2017 (PDF version)
Members will be aware FACS received funding of $100 million for the design and implementation of Child Story.
Your PSA delegates have been involved in regular consultation and discussions with the Department for more than 12 months. Based on all the briefings everything seemed to be going well and the new system to replace KIDS was said to be better than sliced bread. More recently however, your union heard the promised deliverables may not be just what had originally been promised. It has become apparent that the Department has not been completely honest with us.
Outsourcing makes no sense
In June 2017 the Department announced it would be conducting a major restructure of the various teams that had supported KIDS, as well as Child Story. This means all our existing staff who are best placed to transfer into the roles which support the new system both operationally and technically would have their jobs spilled and would have to reapply for new positions in a revised structure.
On top of this, the Department advised your union they had signed contracts with Accenture through a subsidiary company, Cloud Sherpas. That company will be responsible for the main support of Child Story while FACS staff will be confined to assist with access and small configuration changes. FACS staff supporting Child Story have many years of experience and outsourcing will detrimentally impact all field staff who will no longer be able to seek assistance from highly experienced FACS specialists.
The Department plans to undertake this major restructure in the two months immediately prior to Go Live. Staff who are affected by the restructure were ambushed by the announcement and we are at a loss as to why the Department would choose to outsource Child Story.
In light of this we wrote to Minister Goward, which can be read HERE, outlining our grave concerns. We received her response on 21 July which can also be read HERE.
The successful introduction of Child Story is too important to risk at this late stage. There are no winners if the implementation of Child Story goes badly.
The PSA is meeting with Minister Goward today in the hope of negotiating a solution and will advise members of the outcome.