Published Today at 12:46 PM

Minister for Families, Seniors and Disability Services and Minister for Child Safety and the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence
The Honourable Amanda Camm

Unify IT system fix underway as independent report uncovers design and development issues

  • An independent report found bringing the development of Unify in-house and descoping major program functionality led to catastrophic system failures.
  • The project lacked appropriate governance and oversight from the beginning.
  • The Crisafulli Government has put a plan in place to fix the issues with Unify, delivering a fit for purpose IT system to protect children and support frontline staff.  

An independent report has detailed how a series of decisions to bring the development of Unify in-house, led to tighter timeline constraints, descoping of the project and key functionality not being delivered, all causing significant issues within Queensland’s child safety system.  

The report reveals major design and development issues of Unify from 2020, including: 

  • In 2020 the project began with an outside business partner but two years later was brought in-house.  
  • In late 2023, a decision was made to remove several functions from Unify, due to timeline and cost issues, the reduced scope “affected (staff) productivity and ability to provide essential services in a timely manner”.
  • In early 2024 the timeline for operational and corporate data reporting was revised, removing most of the reporting functionality from Unify. 
  • These decisions ultimately led to the systematic failure of Unify. 

The report outlines the effect of Unify on the frontline, finding: 

  • The number of overdue child intakes grew to 40% in September 2025 - following immediate action to bolster the frontline that number has dropped to 0.6% in February 2026. 

The Crisafulli Government has today released its plan to fix Unify and deliver a fit for purpose IT system to protect vulnerable Queensland children and support child safety staff. 

120 staff have been brought in to fix Unify under a remediation plan that includes: 

  • Replacing the previous governance structure for the project with a new structure and an independent chair as well as clear direction, responsibility and oversight for progress updates (now complete). 
  • Publishing operational data within one month.
  • Restoring corporate data within three months. 
  • Stabilising the system within six months through major redevelopment and delivering critical system functionality that was descoped in 2023. 

Minister for Child Safety Amanda Camm said the Crisafulli Government was committed to fixing Unify and putting the framework in place to prevent similar failures.   

“We now have a rigorous way forward to fix the child safety IT system and ensure these failures never occur again,” Minister Camm said. 

“This report is sobering and fixing this is paramount for the thousands of children on the watch of the Child Safety Department. 

“Following this report I have instructed my department to commence work on building the descoped work, as well as restore data reporting as a priority. 

“The Crisafulli Government is committed to fixing Unify and we have a detailed plan on how the department will fix the system to ensure vulnerable children are safe, we can publish critical data and frontline staff have the tools they need. 

“Importantly, we have already removed the backlog of cases waiting to be reviewed, which had grown following the introduction of Unify, reducing it from 40% to just 0.6%, to ensure children are safe.   

“The decision to proceed with the go-live was made on our watch, but this report unveils the decisions leading up to this moment that should never have been made which has allowed us to put a plan in place to fix Unify.  

“I want to thank the frontline staff of Child Safety who have continued to deliver services to protect Queensland’s most vulnerable children, while we work to fix unify.   

“This reinforces the need for the Commission of Inquiry to deliver change to protect this State’s most vulnerable kids. 

“I am committed to overseeing the fix of this system and the changes needed to ensure children are safe and that this does not happen again.” 

ENDS 

MEDIA CONTACT: Chris McMahon 0482 475 829