BackOn 28 August 2026, the NWS Ombudsman tabled a report that highlighted the NSW Department of Communities and Justice’s (DCJ) wrong conduct in handling reports made to it raising concerns about children not yet born (referred to as ‘pre-natal reports’).
The report, titled ‘The Department of Communities and Justice’s practice of responding to pre-natal reports’, follows the NSW Ombudsman’s February 2026 report ‘No Capacity to Allocate’, which detailed the investigation of DCJ’s handling of ‘risk of significant harm’ (ROSH) reports about children and young people.
Concerns arising from the ROSH investigation led to a separate examination of whether DCJ’s policies, tools, and practices relating to pre-natal reports aligned with the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998.
This latest investigation revealed that, until September 2024, DCJ closed a significant number of pre-natal reports without allocating them to a caseworker or referring the expectant parents to support services. DCJ’s Pre-natal Casework Policy was not consistently implemented or clear.
It also found that DCJ misapplied its statutory powers, including by pre-emptively making decisions that a child was at risk of significant harm or in need of care and protection before they were even born.
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Source: The Ombudsman New South Wales, Australia
