Ms Kate Duggan:

We have just received this week the initial draft terms of reference from our parent Department and the independent chair has been assigned. That is Ms Tanya Ward, who is the chief executive of the Children's Rights Alliance. She will convene an interagency steering group, which we asked for, to make sure credibility is given to this oversight. That group will meet for the first time to sign off the official terms of reference. There are just over 42,000 children whose cases were closed. We have prioritised them as regards children who were in care at the time, children who were on the child protection notification system at one time, children who were under child protection and welfare services and so on. We have prioritised how we will do it. We are fortunate in this agency to have a digital management system for all our cases so we are now looking at trying to bottom out how much of it we can automate, to have a connection with the Department of Education and Youth IT systems and school registers and school roll calls. It is about working out how much of it can be automated. When all the children have been identified along with the school or State service they are in, it will involve a contact with that State agency. It will not be with the parents. We will get an assurance from a teacher, public health nurse or some service the child is involved with.