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The Government Register that's keeping child care services honest
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Early childhood services are responsible for the care of young children and are the recipients of Government funding, so it's only fair that they're made accountable to parents, politicians and all Australian tax-payers.
To this end, the Child Care Enforcement Action Register is an online resource that names and shames early childhood providers who have breached their regulations.
With providers listed by state and territory, the Register makes it easy to see which rules services have broken and what action has been taken.
What does the current Register show?
The Child Care Enforcement Action Register 2017/2018 (First Quarter):
- Identifies 38 early childhood providers that broke the rules between July and September 2017
- Of these, 20 services came from Victoria and 11 from NSW
- The most common breaches were services enrolling too many students and providing false documents to boost attendance records
- Some providers also lied about the number of children being cared for and their hours of attendance
What happens if an early childhood service is listed on the Register?
If a service appears in the Register it means they've been sanctioned and/or suspended under the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999. These services can still provide early education and care, but feel the effect of having government funding cancelled or suspended.
Cancelled services are no longer approved for Child Care Benefit, which means parents have to pay full fees and are likely to switch providers. In the case of Suspended services eligibility for the Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate is suspended and attendance slips must be submitted manually to prevent against fraud.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says that the Register functions as a 'warning' to all services, and that the government has increased the number of compliance checks that it carries out in the child care sector.
Mr Birmingham says, "This Register should serve as a warning to providers that if you're non-compliant and do the wrong thing you will be hung out to dry."
"Whilst the overwhelming majority of providers are legitimate and provide high-quality care, those who go down the wrong path should be held to account for their actions."
"Parents should be able to access the information necessary to make informed choices when deciding on a childcare service and have confidence that they are entrusting the care of their children to a compliant and reputable provider."
CareforKids.com.au keeps a close eye on the Register to ensure the quality and integrity of services in our listings. As mentioned above the Register is updated quarterly and we review it following this update: suspended services are not viewable on CareforKids.com.au until their status improves and cancelled services are removed from our database entirely.
How can members of the public report early childhood services?
The Child Care Enforcement Action Register will be updated every three months, and the government urges Australians to report any services that are undertaking illegal or fraudulent activities.
You can report breaches anonymously by calling the Department of Education and Training on 1800 664 231 or emailing tipoffline@education.gov.au
To see the current Child Care Enforcement Action Register click here, and look out for the second quarter results coming out in April.
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