Approved Providers would have been advised by the Federal Department of Education about its intentions to consider streamlining early childhood education and childcare approval processes across Australian states and territories.
The Federal Department of Education is seeking feedback on its public consultation document (ie Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (November 2020).
Notwithstanding, the public statement from the Federal Minister for Education (the Hon Dan Tehan MP), the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW has gathered that the intention of the governments (ie federal, states and territories) may be:
- to ultimately streamline the applications/approvals processes so that once approved in any one jurisdictions as a new Approved Provider or for Child Care Subsidy, such approvals will be recognised across for all jurisdictions;
- to NOT lengthen the overall time that multiple/concurrent government processes are meant to take;
- to reduce existing duplications for applications and the at times inconsistent documentation required of the same Approved Provider across jurisdictions; and
- to strengthen the standards and achieving consistency of processes to detect and prevent fraudulent behaviour (where certain Regulatory Authorities are more effective than other Regulatory Authorities);
One of ACA NSW's prevailing concerns is that the current delays in approving applications for Child Care Subsidy can costing applicants an average of $14,601 per week of forgone CCS as income for long daycare services and $3,044 per week for out-of-school-hours (OSHC) services.
ACA NSW has also learned that this consultation round will focus on the Child Care Subsidy component, with future consultation rounds on the possibility of convergence with the application/approvals processes for Approved Provider, Service Approval, etc.
As e-mail written submissions to CCSA-ChildCareServiceApprovals@dese.gov.au are sought by Friday, 8 January 2021, ACA NSW welcomes members' input for its contribution through the ACA National Committee.
Please direct your feedback/comments to nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.
And for any further information or clarification, please contact ACA NSW on 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au as well.
PUBLISHED: 10 DECEMBER 2020