General secretary of Public Service Association: "the NSW juvenile justice system is in crisis"

Stewart Little, the general secretary of Public Service Association, says the NSW juvenile justice system is in crisis, with violence against staff spiking and inadequate care. “The relentless cuts and outsourcing of public services mean that opportunities for intervention with these kids are consistently missed David Tune's independent report on child protection, which the government kept secret for 18 months, revealed a system in failure. Of the $1.86 billion the state spent on vulnerable families, $960 million, half, is spent on outsourced, privately provided out-of-home care. It costs nearly double to put a kid in an NGO-run home rather than a Family and Community Services (FACS) -managed service. The erosion of funding for FACS means it is now a crisis-driven system. Case workers are operating in survival mode, unable to deliver long-term outcomes for anyone.”