Child safety targets fly in the face of 'increasing' case loads Minister for Child Safety Tracy Davis says it is possible to reduce the caseloads for Queensland's child safety officers down to 15 cases for each worker. That is despite 70 per cent of Queensland's child safety officers reporting their case loads as "increasing" in 2012-2013. Ms Davis said the expectation was that many of the children facing situations warranting "interventions" in their family would be diverted into community-based care. "So, the numbers of children that child safety officers will be dealing with, will decrease," she said. That will take a little time - it's a challenging target at 15 in the short-term - because we still have to deal with the children in care. The recommendation to drop the case loads to 15 was contained in the government's response to Commissioner Tim Carmody's review of child protection in Queensland. In 2004, Queensland's child safety officers cared for 32 "actual cases," despite the recommendation being for 15 cases per worker. In 2007, a revised report also showed 32 "actual cases," again with a recommendation for 15 cases. And in 2012 Child Commissioner Tim Carmody found 70 per cent of more than 400 Queensland child safety officers, team leaders and support officers said case loads were increasing. Most respondents (70%) agreed that their caseloads had increased over time, and just over a third (38%) felt their current caseloads were manageable," Mr Carmody found. Ms Davis said she believed a statewide average caseloads was now in the 'early 20s' per child safety worker, but varied throughout the state. The state government unfolded its main response to Tim Carmody's review on Monday here and outlined the structures to do achieve this here. Deputy Opposition leader Tim Mulherin questioned the track record of the state government in supporting major changes in the welfare area. "The LNP's track record of cuts to frontline services and cuts to frontline community groups cannot be allowed to be repeated when it comes to looking after vulnerable children," Mr Mulherin said. Similarly, this is the government that sacked 385 people working in its own Department of Communities and Child Safety. It also slashed departmental funding to non-government organisations by $65 million a year. Lindsay Wegener, executive director of Queensland's peak care agency Peakcare, said the organisation was "quite pleased" with the government's response to stop removing children from families as a first response. "They have also taken very seriously the recommendations about how to implement the reforms," he said. In particular the establishment of the various advisory groups, the councils and the reform groups. They seem to recognise that this requires government and non-government groups coming together.