ABC & CFK – is it time to look at a national planning system?

ABC & CFK – is it time to look at a
national planning system?

Measuring unmet demand for child care.

Firstly, let me say that our thoughts go out to the child care staff who are worried about their future and of course the parents.

Instead of apportioning blame, we thought it would be helpful to examine a contributing factor to ensure the sector doesn't get into this mess again.

There is a major flaw in the delivery of child care services in Australia... namely that there is no planning mechanism in place to determine where child care services are built.

The result of this flaw has lead to areas of undersupply and oversupply across the country.

We've all heard press reports of anguished parents in recent years unable to find suitable care for their children in some areas. And in recent weeks we've also witnessed the damage resulting from the oversupply of services in other areas.

The President of Childcare NSW, Lyn Connelly, has been quoted in the press of late expressing her concerns over the lack of planning for the delivery of services. Gwynn Bridge, President of Childcare Queensland, has also voiced oversupply concerns that may result from the building of some of the Federal Government's proposed 260 new child care 'supercentres' in Queensland. Amanda Morphett, president of Childcare Associations Australia, has called for a mapping exercise to determine the demand for care where ABC centres might be shut. "This situation should not have been allowed to occur in the first place," she said.

Currently service providers considering delivering new services must rely on a combination of ABS data, anecdotal evidence, and through observing vacancy levels in nearby services when assessing whether there is sufficient demand to warrant a new service.

The limited nature of this information means that decisions concerning supply are often based on guess work.

What is needed is a mechanism for measuring unmet demand.

We came to this same conclusion several years ago and set about doing something about it. We designed, built and delivered a system that measures unmet demand for child care.

I think the government has now arrived at this conclusion also. We've invited Ms Gillard to discuss how we may be of service.

From all indications the government appears to be serious about tackling this problem... we'll just have to wait and see.

If you also believe that the industry would benefit from this type of system and would like to support our efforts/or you'd just like more information, simply send us an email and we'll be in contact. If you like you can also post a comment on CareforKids Social