CCMS in The SpotlightTo allay some of the confusion surrounding the new child care management system (CCMS) CareforKids.com.au has compiled the most important points from Government information in this month's newsletter:
Overview
The CCMS is the new way that the payment of Child Care Benefit (CCB) fee reductions will be managed. It will also improve the information on child care supply and usage that is available to government, services and families and reduce administrative effort.
Services will provide information directly to the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) via the internet to allow calculation and payment of CCB fee reductions.
Parents will also be able to access an online statement from the online services section of the Family Assistance Office (FAO) website to obtain details of their child care and payments.
Timeframe
The CCMS rollout is very close to completion. Every service in Australia should now have received a CCMS transition date and should be prepared to commence operation on the CCMS.
The Government expects all services to have transitioned to the new system by the end of 2009. Current arrangements continue until a service transitions to the news system.
If you are not happy with the way your service's transition to CCMS is being managed by the department, contact the CCMS Helpdesk to discuss your problem or complaint. If you are still dissatisfied ask that your case be referred to the CCMS Branch Manager for consideration and decision.
If you are not content with the outcome after completing these steps contact the Commonwealth Ombudsman on 1300 362 072 or visit www.comb.gov.au.
If you have any issues with your software you should contact your software provider directly.
After Transition
Services will be required to submit details about children in their care and their attendance via the internet. Services will use their child care software to send attendance information at the end of each week, or if necessary, fortnightly.
Calculation of the CCB payment amount for each eligible family will be undertaken by the FAO, based on the attendance information provided by the service. Instead of the current quarterly advance/acquit process, payments of CCB for each child will be made once the attendance information has been received and processed by DEEWR and the FAO.
Enrolment Advances
A new payment called an Enrolment Advance will be introduced to assist services maintain their cash flow in the period between a child starting care and when the first CCB payment is received. This payment will be a flat amount for each eligible enrolment and can be used at the discretion of the service. Once the child leaves care, the Enrolment Advance will be recovered by DEEWR.
All service types other than occasional care are eligible to receive enrolment advances. Due to the nature of occasional care, Enrolment Advances will not apply to this service and DEEWR is consulting with the occasional care sector on alternative arrangements.
Enrolment Advances will be paid at a flat rate per child per service type. The initial Enrolment Advance amount will be $125 per enrolment for all Long Day Care, Family Day Care, In Home Care and Vacation Care enrolments.
The initial Enrolment Advance amount will be $34 per enrolment for eligible Before and After School Hours Care enrolments.
The Enrolment Advance amount will be increased annually in line with CPI increases.
Nominated Hours
When a child attends care in more than one service in a given CCB week, the child's CCB eligible hours are applied across all services used.
As services may submit their attendance records at different times (in some cases, fortnightly) it is important that services and families are not disadvantaged by having to wait for other services to submit their attendance records.
Therefore, the first service to submit their attendance records will generally be the first to be paid.
However, this may result in eligible hours being allocated between services in a way that does not suit the family. It may also make it difficult for services to predict the amount to be paid because one service would not know if another service had already claimed the family's fee reductions.
To help overcome these problems, parents/guardians may nominate how they would like their CCB eligible hours split between two or more services during a CCB week.
DEEWR is providing services with a form that families can complete stating their preference for the maximum number of CCB eligible hours that they wish a service to claim on their behalf. It is a requirement under law that this form is stored by the service for three years after the year in which care was provided.
It is the responsibility of the family to ensure that the total number of nominated hours across all services does not exceed their child's CCB eligible hours.
Parents can view information about fee reductions and eligible hours limits by accessing their online statement on the Centrelink website once your service has transitioned to CCMS.
Transition Payments
DEEWR has contacted all LDC and FDC about the initial capped transition payment of $1,000 (capped at $15,000 for large operators). You should contact the CCMS Helpdesk on 1300 667 276 if you have not received this information.
All other service types started receiving their initial transition payment from March 2008.
Approved operators of LDC and FDC services can now apply for additional assistance funding.
Other services types can apply for additional assistance from April 2008.
Services are not able to apply for additional funding and may do so up to six months after their transition to CCMS.
Additional assistance may help with:
- Purchase of a computer and/or software for the first time
- An essential computer upgrade to support the new software
- Costs associated with services establishing an internet connection
- Any addition transition costs where a service is classified as remote
- Ongoing administrative costs
- Non-essential computer upgrades
- On-going costs such as monthly broadband fees
- Other costs not directly related to transition to CCMS
DEEWR Questions and Answers
Under CCMS, how will a service be able to calculate a fee reduction on the first week of attendance?
Under CCMS service providers will no longer be required to calculate fee reductions. Instead, DEEWR will advise the amount of fee reductions to be passed to families, based on weekly attendance data. The CCB 'one child percentage' will be provided to services so they can estimate fee reductions if they so choose. It will remain a business decision for each service as to whether they bill in advance or arrears.
How will services deal with families who don't have CRNs when they start using care, but obtain them later on?
Services will need to create an enrolment for every child in their care. If CRNs aren't available when a family first starts using care, an informal enrolment record can be created. If the family later supplies their CRN the service can amend the enrolment by adding CRN details, thus 'formalising' the enrolment. Neither CCB fee reductions nor Enrolment Advances will be paid unless a formal enrolment has been created.
I understand that I will have to collect the parent/guardian/child CRNs as well as the date of birth of the parent/guardian and the date of birth of the child to enable a formal enrolment to be created in the CCMS. Is that the case?
That's correct. For each parent/guardian child combination the CRN and date of birth is required for each person to create a formal enrolment. This will help ensure the accuracy of information provided.
Some parents are concerned about providing their date of birth so that I can create a formal enrolment? What should I tell them?
The parent/guardian date of birth is one of the pieces of information that must be provided to create a formal enrolment. The date of birth is used as part of the verification process to ensure that a formal enrolment has been created for the correct parent-child combination.
My family day care service currently operates with a fortnightly reporting cycle. Will we have to change to weekly reporting when CCMS is introduced?
Attendance data will need to be provided for each child for each week of the year. Where required, services will have the option of providing weekly attendance information on a fortnightly basis. Services should note that reporting fortnightly means that CCB payments can only be made fortnightly.
How will services know that families are eligible for CCB fee reductions?
Parents who are eligible for CCB as fee reductions will continue to be issued notices by the FAO, advising them of their CCB assessment. Some of this information will also be sent to DEEWR and made available to services via the CCMS.
Services will need to create an enrolment for each child in their care. If a parent provides CRNs when starting care, the enrolment record will be matched against eligibility information in CCMS and the service provider advised of the parent/child eligibility for fee reductions. Eligibility will be checked when each week's attendance information is provided by the service.
How will services know whether a child is eligible for 24 hours, 50 hours or more than 50 hours CCB per week?
Selected details of families' eligibility, including their eligible hours limit, will be made available to services through their software and the CCMS interface at enrolment. Services should query enrolment records on a regular basis to access any updates to eligibility information.
How will the new absence provisions work for families who have an eligible hours limit greater than 50 hours per week?
Under CCMS families will be able to receive CCB up to the limit of their eligible hours, whether this is 24 hours, 50 hours or more than 50 hours, for all hours charged. CCB can be paid for absences for all hours charged, up to a family's eligible hours limit, including where the eligible hours limit is greater than 50 hours.
What are 'additional absences' under CCMS?
Under CCMS, each child will receive an initial 42 absences per financial year, which may be used for any reason and without proof of circumstances. Once the first 42 absence days have been exhausted, additional absences may be claimed only in permitted circumstances and if evidence is held by the service. The permitted circumstances will be similar to the current 'approved absence' reasons, but will exclude public holidays. The permitted circumstances are:
- an illness (with a medical certificate)
- an outbreak of infectious disease, when the child is not immunised
- any other absences due to sickness of the child, a parent or sibling supported by medical certificates
- a parent being on a rotating shift or rostered day off
- a temporary closure of a school or a pupil free day
- a period of local emergency
- shared custody arrangements due to a court order, consent order or parenting order
- attendance at preschool or
- exceptional circumstances
The new 42 day absence arrangements comes into effect from the time a child care service transitions to the new CCMS system.
For more information call the CCMS helpdesk on 1300 667 276 or email your questions to ccmshelpdesk@deewr.gov.au.
CareforKids.com.au®
Care For Kids Internet Services Pty Ltd
ABN 55 104 145 735
Level 2, 2 Bligh St Sydney NSW 2000
privacy policy contact us