CCMS Meltdown - CareforKids.com.au®

CCMS Meltdown
Has your child care service been affected?

Problems with the Child Care Management System's ability to handle a large volume of transactions at peak times have resulted in some payments not being processed as quickly as usual.

According to the Minister for Child Care, Kate Ellis, the department is working to resolve the issues and she says contingency plans are in place to assist services affected by the CCMS meltdown.

"Where child care centres are experiencing difficulties with the system, alternative arrangements have been made. Child care centres can access continuity payments from the Department to minimise disruption and manual payments are currently being processed within 24 hours," she said.

Opposition spokesperson for child care Sussan Ley said Minister Ellis had downplayed problems and that DEEWR officials questioned in recent Senate Estimates hearings confirmed they had received an average of 77 complaints per day since January, with calls peaking at over 350 on 31 January and 6 February.

"This is the tip of the iceberg," said Ms Ley.

"I'm told scores of other child care centres were too scared to call in case there was some sort of retribution by the Department, or they simply gave up calling after experiencing long delays on-hold.

The whole thing is a shambles and the sector is cracking under the weight of incompetency from this Minister," said Ms Ley.

In a recent newsletter, CCMS Helpdesk Manager, Kym Thomson, apologised for the disruptions and urged child care services to try and continue to lodge their attendance data:

"Some services have found that they are able to successfully submit data to CCMS when it is sent in small batches," she said.

Ms Thomson urged services with ongoing problems to access DEEWR's business continuity payment arrangements.

"Where a service is not able to submit data to the CCMS for a period of more than two weeks due to circumstances outside their control, DEEWR has Business Continuity Payment arrangements in place. Information about these arrangements can be found here" she said.

Has your child care service been affected by the CCMS meltdown? Share your experiences here.