Preschool funding for long daycare poised to increase by up to 328% (2022 onwards)

One of the significant announcements from the recent Federal Budget 2021 was the guarantee of Universal Access to Preschool funding.

Beginning in 2022, the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW anticipates the funding for children enrolled in NSW-based long daycare services during their year-before-school to be increased to about $1,340 per child per year.

This represents an increase of between 51.4% and 328% depending on what individual long daycare services and their children had previously been receiving via the NSW Start Strong funding of $313-$885 (typically $469) per child per year.

In ACA NSW’s opinion, this funding increase for NSW effectively corrects a long standing and unique unfairness towards NSW-based long daycare services. And ACA NSW thanks the Federal Government for this correction.

Until this Federal Budget, our concerns about the Federal Government’s Universal Access average funding per child not being realised in NSW-based long daycare services had been consistently communicated to both tiers of governments (for example, in ACA NSW’s A State of Positive Possibilities 2021 (Section 4.1, Page 11) and in ACA National’s 2021/2022 Pre-Budget Submission (Section 2, Page 6)).

ACA NSW has written to the NSW Department of Education expressing its interest in the upcoming discussions about the associated requirements as a result of receiving such Federal Government funding, in particular the aspiration for school readiness.

If members require further information/clarification, please contact the ACA NSW office via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.

PUBLISHED: 18 MAY 2021