The minister in charge of New South Wales’ troubled child protection system has admitted that vulnerable children will continue to be housed in hotels and motels – just hours after suggesting such emergency accommodation would be banned.
The state’s families minister, Kate Washington, told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday that “accredited providers” would continue to operate hotel and motel placements for children who had been removed from their families due to abuse or neglect.
Washington made the admission just hours after she had suggested the practice would end. The minister had earlier stated in a press release that the government would ban the use of “alternative care arrangements” (ACAs) within six months.
“The Minns Labor government will ban the use of unaccredited emergency accommodation for vulnerable children in the foster care system, reversing the former government’s reliance on these inappropriate and costly arrangements,” she said in the statement.
ACAs are a type of “high-cost emergency care arrangement” (HCEA) in which children are placed in hotels, motels, serviced apartments or rental accommodation under the supervision of shift workers.
Later on Tuesday, Washington said at parliament that ACAs would be banned but hotels and motels would still be used to house children.
During a budget estimates hearing, the opposition families spokesperson, Natasha Maclaren-Jones, asked Washington if “the hotels and motels will still operate but with accredited carers”.
Washington replied: “Correct.”
Guardian Australia understands the government considers housing children in hotels and motels unavoidable in some emergencies.
But Labor intends to use this type of accommodation as a short-term solution only – and to have children supervised by qualified caseworkers employed by agencies accredited by the Office of the Children’s Guardian.
Washington revealed on Tuesday during budget estimates that the government had spent $357.8m on HCEAs in the 2023-2024 financial year.
Most ACAs are run as a for-profit service by labour-hire firms that employ staff who may not have any qualifications apart from a working with children check.
The government has described them as the “last resort” placement option.
“Since I became minister, I’ve made it very clear that vulnerable children do not belong in hotels, motels or caravan parks with shift workers instead of foster carers,” Washington said in the press release announcing the phase-out of ACAs.
Maclaren-Jones said Washington had “no answers or plan” for where the most vulnerable children would go in an emergency, other than another HCEA.
Over the past 12 months, over 1250 foster carers had left the system, she said.
The government has said there were 39 children in ACAs as of 16 August, down from 139 children in November 2023.
Washington on Tuesday said most of those children had been moved into foster care and the government had managed to recruit about 200 new emergency carers.
The Minns government wanted to become a provider of foster care and residential homes again, she said, more than a decade after the Coalition handed this responsibility to private agencies and NGOs.
The government also planned to increase accountability and oversight measures for third-party providers. “There is always going to be a safe place for children to go in the system that we operate,” Washington said.
The government has said it has identified “suitable alternatives” for the remaining 39 children in ACAs, including returning them to their parents, placing them with a foster carer or relative, or transferring them into “intensive therapeutic care” (ITC).
The government said it recently expanded ITC, which is a program for children 12 and older with complex needs who are either unable to be supported in foster care or require special support to stay there.
