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Speaker 1: It's a worry. These numbers coming out of ordering a

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Speaker 1: tamadiki this morning via a report from enz ME, more

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Speaker 1: than thirteen hundred kids who are overdue to be assigned

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Speaker 1: a social worker. On top of this, eighty one thousand

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Speaker 1: reports of concern that's when people are worried about a

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Speaker 1: kid they report it to ordering a tamidiki. Eighty one

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Speaker 1: thousand in the last year to March. That is a

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Speaker 1: forty five percent increase on the previous year. The chief

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Speaker 1: executive Child Matters Jane Searle with us this morning. Jane,

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Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning, Ryan. Now those overdue, So the

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Speaker 1: thirteen hundred kids overdue to be assigned a social worker,

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Speaker 1: that's ten days or more. How serious is that? Give

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Speaker 1: us an idea, Well, it's.

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Speaker 2: Usually concerning, So you need to have social workers in

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Speaker 2: front of these children to understand what the risk is.

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Speaker 2: So the question is what does it mean or we

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Speaker 2: have an increase in unallocated cases. The answers increase risk

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Speaker 2: for a vulnerable kids and.

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Speaker 1: A forty five percent increase in the reports of concern.

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Speaker 1: Just to clarify, that's not necessarily eighty one thousand kids

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Speaker 1: that could be double ups there, so.

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Speaker 2: It's well, it depends how they calculated and if there

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Speaker 2: are reports concerns about the same children or the same

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Speaker 2: children in one family. But I mean, we've always sat

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Speaker 2: high with our reports are concerns, but these are the

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Speaker 2: highest numbers that I've seen. What's called that that's up

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Speaker 2: for debate. We do know, of course, that that's as

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Speaker 2: a fraction of the children that are risk in the country.

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Speaker 2: Because report are concerned our only a fraction of what

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Speaker 2: we know is going on. So it shows that are

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Speaker 2: Englis commody keys increasingly swamped with this workload. And if

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Speaker 2: you're swamped to do the work that you're meant to

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Speaker 2: be doing, that's for a huge concern.

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Speaker 1: You said, it's up for debate about why. Obvious answers

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Speaker 1: one is there's more abuse going on or people are

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Speaker 1: reporting it more. What do you say?

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Speaker 2: I would say it could be a mixture of both.

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Speaker 2: But we know that there's a huge amount of underreporting,

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Speaker 2: and what I hear from the social sector is that

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Speaker 2: probably there is less reporting from some serious cases. So

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Speaker 2: it's certainly not indicative of the fact that it's just

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Speaker 2: more being reported and that we're knowing what's going on.

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Speaker 2: I don't think that's the case.

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Speaker 1: Help, This makes sense for me. Government says there's more

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Speaker 1: social workers going in, they've revamped the reporting system sixty

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Speaker 1: eight million dollars over four years or whatever it was

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Speaker 1: last year, and yet they are swamped. In your words,

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Speaker 1: what's going on?

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Speaker 2: Well, the answer is that OT is a very big

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Speaker 2: ship to turn around and it is going to take years.

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Speaker 2: We always knew that, but I think that, I mean,

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Speaker 2: this shows that the capacity is storm not what it

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Speaker 2: should be, and if our weight lists are growing, then

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Speaker 2: it's going to increase risk. So there's no way of

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Speaker 2: talking around that.

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Speaker 1: Jane, I appreciate your time this morning. Jane cell Child

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Speaker 1: Matters Chief executive.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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