Audit Faults Children’s Agency Chief

The county Department of Children and Family Services is so mired in organizational and leadership problems that its director, Peter Digre, needs a top deputy to run the day-to-day operations of the embattled agency, a much-awaited audit has concluded.

Sources familiar with the soon-to-be-released audit by Price Waterhouse LLP said it also found that the department--one of the largest child-protective services in the nation--lacks the kind of basic long-term strategic planning needed to ensure the adequate protection of the tens of thousands of abused and neglected children in the agency’s care.

What’s more, auditors found, the department suffers greatly from a lack of trust--on the part of its employees and managers as well as other people who work with it on a day-to-day basis, such as foster-care parents and representatives of the Juvenile Court system.

The audit--the first-ever independent analysis of the county’s children’s services operation--is sure to add weight to the growing calls for a top-to-bottom overhaul of the agency.

The audit was ordered last year by the Board of Supervisors after a series of high-profile controversies, such as the deaths of several wards of the county in foster care and community-based group homes. In recent months, the department also has been sharply criticized for the way it manages a child-abuse hotline and the nation’s largest public adoption agency.

The audit had been scheduled for release Wednesday but was abruptly pulled back and delayed until next week while Digre was given time to respond to the many calls for reform.

A spokesman for Digre said Wednesday that he had no comment.

But sources familiar with final drafts of the report said it has concluded that Digre’s lack of leadership and his management style have hamstrung the department, and that organizational problems exist at every level.

Consequently, Digre needs a top lieutenant to run the department while he concentrates on long-term planning and the budget, auditors said.

Auditors also said a five-year strategic plan is critical. Because Digre does not have such a plan, the department has foundered under the weight of too many reforms and suggestions heaped upon it by a variety of sources, they said.

“Without a plan, it has been impossible for him to say no to pressure from outside agencies to adopt new proposals and new ideas,” said one county official familiar with the audit. “The department was trying to do everything and please everyone and needs a better process to identify where to go and how to get there.”

In recent days, Digre characterized the audit as giving him generally good marks for his leadership of the department. “I think it is very helpful,” Digre said in an interview with The Times. “It really has some good ideas on how we can strengthen the program.”

Jo Kaplan, a lawyer whose advocacy firm represents 11,000 children who are wards of the county, said the findings don’t go far enough. “You didn’t need an audit to see that this system . . . needs to be fixed.” Kaplan said. “But if all [the audit] is saying is that the system needs strategic planning and better management of scarce resources, then what’s new?”