Its letter says the computer system is not functional and "an innumerable number" of historical child protection records spanning 30 years had not been transferred to ChildStory. However, the Department of Family and Community Services said the "average" wait time on the helpline was not two hours. A spokesman said it was 11.5 minutes last week, when 19 per cent of callers hung up. Four senior child protection workers who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Fairfax Media they were doing "casework by guesswork" because they could not access vital data, including child histories of abuse and family background checks. The caseworkers said child protection helpline waiting times had blown out to as long as two hours in some cases. And this was the first school year that had started with a backlog of unassessed child protection reports. School principals have complained they have had to wait too long to get through. NSW Secondary Principals Council president Chris Presland said schools were increasingly making notifications to the helpline by email because of "delays at every point".

"We have nothing but praise the work the people at FACS do," Mr Presland said. "They are working under enormous pressure. "Principals these days make notifications increasingly by email because you can't get a response on the child protection line or when trying to get any follow up." NSW Public Service Association general secretary Stewart Little. A PSA survey of 633 child protection workers taken in February found 94 per cent said "no" when asked if ChildStory was user friendly and intuitive. More than three quarters of respondents said they were now spending more time at their computer using ChildStory and 76.7 per cent said they would consider taking industrial action over the issue.

PSA general secretary Stewart Little said the union was concerned that incidents of child neglect or harm would not be reported because Child Protection Helpline waiting times had "blown out". "It is also of great concern that at the beginning of every year the backlog of cases that the helpline need to assess has traditionally been zero whereas this year it is in the thousands. Each of these is a child or a family or children who are potentially at risk,” he said. NSW Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward. Credit:Wolter Peeters The Minister for Family and Community Services, Pru Goward, said caseworkers had told her firsthand of their challenges with ChildStory. "I have been out to meet with front-line staff in Northern NSW, in Western Sydney and in the Hunter, and I have taken all of their concerns seriously and asked the secretary of the department to fix them," she said. "I am aware of the PSA's concerns and I welcome their surveys and constructive feedback."

A FACS spokesman said ChildStory had been "frustrating for staff, largely because the first round of training was not up to scratch". "We have acknowledged this and are providing more support and better training," the spokesman said. The spokesman said the PSA survey had been used to create a 25-point action plan, with 22 of those points already implemented. "The transition to the new system has been a big challenge, but FACS is absolutely confident that ChildStory is significantly better than the system it replaces," the spokesman said. Labor spokeswoman for Family and Community Services Tania Mihailuk said thousands of reports of children potentially at risk "are being left by the wayside".

"The Premier must intervene before a child's life is lost as a result," she said. The Premier declined to comment.