Breaking News - Free child care to end

The Australian Government has announced an end to the temporary Early Childhood Education and Care Relief Package and a return to the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) and Additional Child Care Subsidy (A CCS) from 12 July.

The CCS will return on 13 July, along with new transition measures to support the sector and parents as they move back to the subsidy.

The JobKeeper payment will also cease from 20 July for employees of a CCS approved service and for sole traders operating a child care service.

In addition to the CCS, the Government has said it will pay child care services a Transition Payment of 25 per cent of their fee revenue during the relief package reference period (17 February to 1 March) from 13 July until 27 September.

The last two payments scheduled for September will be brought forward to support services with cash flow. The government says this additional Transition Payment of $708 million will replace JobKeeper and applies important conditions on early childhood providers.

For the period of the transition:

•  Child care fees will be capped at the level of the reference period (17 February to 1 March).
•  Services need to guarantee employment levels to protect staff who will move off the JobKeeper Payment.

The Government will also ease the activity test until 4 October to support eligible families whose employment has been impacted as a result of COVID-19.

These families will receive up to 100 hours per fortnight of subsidised care during this period.

Minister for Education Dan Tehan says the measures will relieve the financial pressure on families doing it tough.

“Under the CCS, out-of-pocket costs were less than $5 per hour per child for the parents of 72.4 per cent of children in centre based day care in the September quarter last year.

“Out-of-pocket costs were less than $2 per hour per child for the parents of nearly 24.4 per cent of children in centre based day care.

“Nearly 80 per cent of providers in the child care sector operate a single child care service, and our child care transition package is designed to support businesses to remain viable while they provide care to children as we ease restrictions further and get more people back to work, “ he said