Last week’s announcement of a $300 million cash injection over two years to boost wages in the child care sector was widely received as a step in the right direction for underpaid early childhood education and care professionals.

The money will be made available under a new Early Years Quality Fund (EYQF) and will provide grants to child care services to offset the cost of employing more qualified staff without raising the cost of care.

As always with announcements like this there is a fair amount of small print you need to wade through to figure out who will get the money and when, so here goes:

• The money will be available for two years from 1 July 2013.
• Not all services will be eligible to receive funding (see below).
• Funding will be paid directly to eligible services and will supplement wages to the tune of $3.00 to $5.23 an hour ($114 to $198.74 a week) depending on qualifications.
• Only long day care centres approved for CCB can apply for funding.
• Eligible LDCs must show 'a commitment to improving quality outcomes for children, including workforce plans to attract and retain qualified staff' (see below).
• The number of services that received money will depend on the size of services that apply and the number of qualified staff they employ.
• Funding will depend on wage increases being included as part of an enterprise bargaining agreement.
• Funding will be allocated via an application process and services will be assessed against eligibility criteria including:
  • A demonstrated commitment to quality outcomes for children under the NQF including a plan to meet qualification requirements.
  • An agreement to use funds for wage increases only.
  • A commitment to keeping care affordable through fee increases limited to operating costs (and no increases as a result of wages arising from the operation of the EYQF).
  • Improved fee transparency for parents (services will need to explain to families how much financial assistance is provided by government through CCB and CCR).
  • Meeting reporting requirements for the MyChild website.
• The Government is establishing an advisory board made up of employer/ee organisations, child care industry representatives and officers from DEEWR to advise on how all of the above will be administered and who should receive the money in accordance with the eligibility criteria.