The Queensland Government is spending $51.1 million on a new core child safety IT system.

The new funds come over two years after the existing system was labelled “outdated”.

Queensland’s Minister for Child Safety, Youth and Women Di Farmer said the integrated client management system (ICMS) would be replaced over the next four years, allowing the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women to deliver and support the first stage of its replacement project, dubbed the ‘unify program’.

“The unify program will streamline processes, making it quicker and easier for our staff to use and allowing them to spend more time engaging with clients,” Ms Farmer said.

The ICMS is designed to bring together all relevant information about a child to be viewed and other agencies and service providers.

Ms Farmer said the new system would address all previous audit recommendations once it is fully implemented by 2023. 

“The ICMS replacement unify program is a complex, multi-year project that is being developed in states,” she said.

“We are not rushing into this new system but taking the time we need to get it right.”

The Queensland Family and Child Commission called for a “modern, integrated client management information system” back in March 2017.