The Front Project welcomes the Commonwealth Government’s announcement to improve safety and quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC). This includes leveraging significant investment in the sector to improve quality and penalising providers who consistently fail to meet minimum standards.
Minister for Early Childhood Education and Care, Dr Anne Aly, announced key measures, including withholding Child Care Subsidy payments when a provider isn’t paying staff or when they are persistently breaching the National Quality Standards.
CEO of the Front Project Dr Caroline Croser-Barlow states, “Over the last decade, the Commonwealth has focused on subsidising ECEC for families. As a result, Commonwealth spending has grown from $4bn in 2012 to $14bn today. However, this has left gaping holes in Commonwealth/State responsibility that bad faith operators drive straight through.We need to get the balance of carrots and sticks right.”
Today’s announcement shows strong leadership from the Commonwealth in telling bad faith operators there’s no easy money to be made at the expense of children. However, it will be important for States and Territories to work together to strengthen their regulatory approaches.
As noted by the Productivity Commission, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the South Australian Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care, we need strong shared stewardship of our early education system.
“Working through the detail of how the Commonwealth’s decisions are implemented will be a great opportunity for the Commonwealth and States and Territories to work together to achieve the vision of a high-quality universal ECEC system. An Early Childhood Development Commission would help foster this.” said Dr Croser-Barlow.
Importantly, the Child Care Subsidy will also not be paid to providers wanting to establish new services where they have consistently failed to meet the National Quality Standards.
Dr Croser-Barlow states, “Our National Quality Framework is amongst the best in the world for good reason. Children who attend services that ‘Meet’ or ‘Exceed’ national standards have better outcomes than children who attend ‘Working Towards’ services. Not allowing providers who have a pattern of not meeting standards will help ensure children are not only safe but also thriving at their ECEC centre.”
Since the release of the Front Project and Mandala’s Paving the Path: Addressing Market Imbalances to Achieve Quality and Affordable Childcare, the Front Project has been advocating for government to understand the impact of lucrative and largely unconditional incentives for providers who seek super-profits at the expense of quality and positive outcomes for children.
Dr Croser-Barlow concludes, “We know quality matters for child outcomes and it’s encouraging to see the Commonwealth announce changes that will help shape the system to better meet the needs of children.”
Contact: Rachel Wallbridge, 0402 680 092 or