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The Hon. JOHN RYAN: I direct my question to the Minister for Community Services. Why has the Minister not provided an answer to my question on notice that I asked dated 5 May relating to the number of backlog faxes being retained at the child abuse helpline for the months of January, February and March? Can she provide the figures to the House now or by tomorrow at least if this was some sort of oversight?
The Hon. CARMEL TEBBUTT: I think the honourable member meant to say that he asked his question on 5 March.
The Hon. John Ryan: Sorry, March.
The Hon. CARMEL TEBBUTT: I am getting somewhat confused. I am not sure whether he is alleging no answer was provided or he is just not satisfied with the answer he was given. Therefore, I will have to wait and see what the honourable member comes forward with in that regard. I am very pleased to provide some information to the House currently about the performance of the helpline. I can advise the House it is good news. The helpline is an area of the department's operations that has, over a significant period, come in for some criticism both because of wait times and because of fax backlogs. It is true that the helpline performance has had some dips and I have often had to explain to the House the reasons for that, particularly when we saw the introduction of the new client information system at the end of last year.
I quite clearly said before the introduction of the new system that there would be an impact on wait times at the helpline. I made that very clear and I also acknowledged that after the introduction of the client information system there was an impact on the wait times as I had predicted to the House. The helpline is now operating with more caseworkers than at any other time since it commenced operations in December 2000. Since the start of the 2003-04 financial year three rounds of recruitment have been completed, and 24 new caseworkers completed their entry-level training in the first week of January and 18 new caseworkers completed their entry-level training on 16 April.
I go now to the issue of call wait times because it is an issue that has been subject to quite a lot of scrutiny. I have previously advised the House of the new system the department implemented to establish queue management and call back teams to be able to better manage wait times. I am pleased to advise the House that for the week of Friday 16 April to Thursday 22 April the average time callers waited was four minutes and 31 seconds. I think everyone would acknowledge that is a significant achievement. We measure the wait times every week. I would be happy to provide the House with the monthly wait time for April because it will also show there has been a significant reduction in call wait times.
The helpline does not stop there. It is hoping to get its wait times down even lower because the wait times obviously have an impact on fax backlogs and call abandonment rates. I turn now to call abandonment rates. For the week of Friday 16 April to Thursday 22 April the average call abandonment rate was 9.63 per cent, again a significant reduction. I turn now to fax backlogs. It is certainly the case that when there are longer wait times we see an increase in faxes because mandatory reporters are unable to get straight through on the phone. The ability to fax has significantly improved the operations of the helpline. Nonetheless, at the end of last year, when we saw difficulties with the introduction of the client information system, there was an increase in the number of faxes and the fax backlog. Notwithstanding these issues, I am advised there has been an encouraging shift in backlog numbers and the backlog now stands at 238 faxes. I need to make very clear that faxes that require urgent attention are dealt with urgently. Faxes in the backlog are faxes that need to be input on the system to build a fuller picture of a child at risk but they are obviously not urgent faxes. [Time expired.]