Embattled child protection agency Families SA has bolstered the on-call roster for its Crisis Response Unit in the wake of damning recommendations by the state coroner over the death of four-year-old Chloe Valentine.

Coroner Mark Johns ordered an urgent review into the operations of the unit, “with a view to determining whether it has sufficient resources”.

Johns’ concerns were highlighted by a 2008 incident in which Families SA consented to Chloe being returned to her mother, Ashlee Polkinghorne, in a hire car, unaccompanied by case workers. He noted staff had appeared reluctant to summon back-up, even though there were workers on-call, and expressed concern that this might be “because of financial considerations”.

“There should be no hesitation in arranging a call back for an on-call worker in a case such as that … staff should be informed as a matter of policy that the appropriate action is to institute a call back in a situation such as that,” Johns declared.

Chloe died in the care of her Polkinghorne and her then-boyfriend Benjamin McPartland in 2012.

Families SA told InDaily in a statement that it had “already commenced a thorough review and redesign process to improve the child protection system” before the coronial inquest, in response to the Chloe Valentine tragedy and other high profile incidents.

“As part of the redesign, Families SA improved its crisis response by broadening the on-call roster,” a spokesman said.

“The department (has) also reinforced its policies to ensure staff contact an on-call supervisor when circumstances arise which demand all rostered crisis response night shift workers be mobilised.

“This policy was reiterated to relevant staff in April in response to the Coroner’s recommendation.”

It’s unclear whether the review has yet determined the Crisis Response Unit is sufficiently resourced.

InDaily revealed in May that South Australia was recently ranked second lowest in Australia “in terms of expenditure per child on statutory child protection services”, with more than half the almost 20,000 potentially serious notifications received each year going uninvestigated.

Education and Child Development Minister Susan Close told an Estimates hearing last month the average waiting time for reporting concerns to the department’s Child Abuse Report Line had almost doubled in the past three years, and was now more than 20 minutes.

Families SA told InDaily it would “continue working toward further improvements in the operation of the Child Abuse Report Line and the provision of its 24-hour service to ensure the appropriate response is forthcoming at any hour”.

“Work on all the accepted recommendations (of the Coronial inquiry) is progressing and an update on that work will be made public later in the year,” a spokesman said.

The Weatherill cabinet fully accepted 19 of Johns’ 21 recommendations, giving in-principle support to a proposal to broaden the state’s adoption regime, pending the outcome of the Nyland Royal Commission.

However, the Government said further investigation was needed on the coroner’s recommendation “prohibiting the transport alone of a child under the age of 12 years in any circumstances with a chauffeured delivery service unless in the custody of an employee of Families SA”.

Despite broadening the on-call roster, Families SA faces ongoing staffing concerns as it continues to work through concerns with existing employees.

Following an audit of employment records after the arrest of caseworker Shannon McCoole, who was last week sentenced to 28 years’ jail for the severe sexual abuse of seven children in state care, the department stood down 25 staff and flagged concerns with 77 others.

Shannon McCoole was sentenced last week.

Of those 102 workers, 15 have left the department and six are still being investigated, a fact Education and Child Development chief Tony Harrison concedes is a concern.

“That’s why we’ve considerably changed the selection recruitment processes, and at the moment we are considering 1300 applications for new staff to work in residential care and we’re in the process of appointing those new employees right now,” Harrison told ABC891.

He said the agency had also “changed our rostering system (and) ratios of supervisors”.