The South Australian government says it has identified approximately 500 children in particularly high-risk settings, as part of a review of its child protection system.
The review, led by former police commissioner Mal Hyde, was prompted by the deaths of a seven-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl in separate incidents earlier this year.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the "principle" reason for the reviews were to determine whether there were other children at risk and to "ameliorate" that risk.
He said a "coordinated response" with SA Police and multiple government agencies was underway to check on the welfare of all of those 500 children as quickly as possible.
Mr Hyde said the results came from analysing data based on seven characteristics such as the number, type and frequency of notifications made to the child protection system and how many agencies were involved.
"This is not to say that all of those 500 children are presently at a high risk," he said.
"It is likely there is an unknown number within that group that is at high risk and we need to try and identify as urgently as possible where those risks lie and take appropriate action in dealing with that."
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said a senior police officer would be chosen to coordinate the process of checking on the 500 children.
Mr Malinauskas said "there have been failings" and the government was acting immediately.
“Governments can’t be loving, caring parents and guardians like parents and guardians themselves can be," he said.
"But what we can do is accept that the responsibility and authority that is invested within government demands action and investment in any way and every way possible to protect children where we can.”
Mr Malinauskas said the government has accepted "in principle" all 31 recommendations from the Hyde review.
The government has also accepted "in principle" two out of three recommendations made in another review led by child protection expert Kate Alexander, which assessed the status of all previous coronial and other recommendations relating to child protection.
The government said the recommendation to merge the Department for Human Service’s child protection services with the Department for Child Protection would "represent a significant machinery of government change and will require further consideration".
"What is clear from both these reports is there is much work to do, but also acknowledge that there is good work also being done," Mr Malinauskas said.
As a result of the two reviews, the government will establish a child protection "expert group", with its first task to ensure the prioritisation of cases and an understanding of child neglect.
Mr Hyde said neglect was "not child abuse in the sense that there's an obvious injury or illness".
"Neglect can be quite invisible and in that respect it doesn't necessarily have the same impact on those practitioners involved in child protection," he said.
Mr Malinauskas said there had been 811 recommendations around child protection from independent reviews, royal commissions and coronial inquiries since 2016.
He said 78 per cent of those recommendations had been completed.
"Less than one per cent of those 811 recommendations has the decision been made not to proceed with them," he said.
While the Alexander review was made public today, Mr Malinauskas said the Hyde review was unable to be released yet, on legal advice that it could jeopardise ongoing criminal investigations.
"The opposition will take a close look at the Hyde review when the full document is released publicly as promised by Peter Malinauskas," opposition spokesperson for child protection, Josh Teague, said in a statement.
"Given the alarming state of the child protection system, we cannot afford another situation where Labor hides a crucial review away from the public eye."
