Family and Community Services 2018

The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford released her report today on the Family and Community Services cluster. The report focuses on key observations and findings from the most recent financial audits of agencies in the cluster.

Cluster entities received unqualified audit opinions for their 30 June 2018 financial statements. Opportunities to improve the quality of financial reporting were identified and reported to management.

The report notes the growing cost of maintaining social housing and delays in the Department’s implementation of a new ChildStory IT system. The ChildStory system is designed to replace the existing systems for child protection, out-of-home care and early intervention and prevention.

The report also highlights that Family and Community Services passed $2.1 billion in government funding to non-government organisations in 2017-18, to provide services to vulnerable children and families and disability services. In addition, $1.9 billion was paid to the National Disability Insurance Agency as the NSW contribution to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Over 94,000 people with disability in NSW have transitioned to NDIS.

The transition to NDIS and the increasing use of the non-government sector to provide services has resulted in over a third of frontline staff and an equivalent number of back office staff transferring to non-government and other public sector organisations.

Further information

Barry Underwood, Director, Office of the Auditor-General, on 0403 073 664 and email barry.underwood@audit.nsw.gov.au.