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Client Incident Management System (CIMS)

Client Incident Management System, CIMS, Incident report, Incident, critical incidents
3213
This service description provides information regarding reporting and responding incidents that occur during service delivery and result in harm to a client.
Document ID number 3213, version 2, 9 December 2024
Introduction

The Client Incident Management System (CIMS) is an incident reporting and management system for department-delivered and department-funded services. The primary purpose of CIMS is to safeguard clients. It does this by providing timely and effective responses to incidents that have harmed a child or young person during service delivery. This, in turn, enables service providers to enhance service delivery by learning from incidents. 

All service providers, including Child Protection, are required to report client incidents that occur during service delivery and result in harm to a client or young person or were reasonably likely to to cause serious harm to a child or young person, in CIMS. 

Incidents in scope of CIMS reporting are those that occur while a child or young person is in the care of anyone other than their parent, as approved by Child Protection. 'Parent' is defined in the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (CYFA). 

All incidents that occur while the child is outside of parental care, whether in statutory or voluntary capacity, are in scope of CIMS reporting. 

Child Protection’s responsibilities for CIMS

The detailed CIMS policy and guidance (link to be included) can be found on the CIMS webpage (link). This document details:

  • incident reporting, investigation and review requirements
  • roles and responsibilities: key actions, service providers are required to take, including when to report, investigate, or review incidents, and analyse and learn from incidents. 

As service providers, Child Protection practitioners are responsible for reporting incidents which are in scope of CIMS, and for the follow-up actions outlined in the CIMS policy. These actions include investigating allegations of abuse or neglect and unexplained injuries for children in care arrangements assessed and approved by child protection, such as kinship or respite care. Child protection practitioners are also required to conduct incident reviews following major impact incidents of other types (see Client Incident Management System (CIMS) policy and Client Incident Management System (CIMS) - Advice for further guidance).  

Related procedures

Additional information