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| Compliance taskforce hands out $2 million in fines
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The Abbott Government's new Child Care Compliance Taskforce has handed out close to $2 million in fines since July to providers operating outside the law.
Assistant Minister for Education Sussan Ley said the Taskforce had taken action against 24 services, ranging from suspensions and restrictions to the issuing of 256 fines totalling $1.74 million dollars.
According to information from the Assistant Minister's office, Family Day Care (FDC) comprised more than 90 per cent of offenders, with action taken against 22 FDC co-ordination services representing a network of 1500 individual home educators across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.
This included fines totalling $100,000 or more for nine of these FDC co-ordination services, with one racking up combined penalties worth over $300,000.
Ms Ley said she was "deeply concerned" by the number of questionable practices already uncovered, particularly in the Family Day Care sector.
"The results are troubling, there’s no two-ways about it. It’s always disappointing to uncover these sorts of dodgy practices, particularly when these services are meant to be focussed on the high- quality care and education of our children, not ripping off taxpayers," Ms Ley said.
Ms Ley said the Taskforce had used its intelligence network to seek out non-compliant services through a combination of targeted investigations into suspicious claims, random checks, forensic data analysis and better education.
About half of the 22 non-compliant Family Day Care co-ordination services were fined for making excessive claims for payments on behalf of children in their care, often unbeknown to parents.
Thirteen of these FDC services also had their operations restricted or suspended after being found to have upwards of 500 more individual educators on their books than legally permitted between them – raising questions about the safety of care provided and the validity of payments claimed.
One Long Day Care centre in Queensland also had their service suspended after failing to notify the Department of Education its service approval was withdrawn by the state regulator, while a second in Western Australia was issued with a "please explain" about the service’s administration, which has since been rectified.
Ms Ley said the Taskforce would continue to track down services operating outside the law and would work to deter other providers from considering it.
She also said the Department would continue to monitor the services already identified as questionable and said they may face further sanctions including fines, suspension and cancellation if they do not comply with compliance actions taken against them. Recovery actions were also currently underway where applicable, she said.
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