You're probably already aware that the peak period of the new year enrolments has been a real test for the new Child Care Subsidy System (CCSS). 

As usual, the first few months of this year started with lots of new families enrolling with their new early learning services. The difference this year was of course that this time they had to apply for the Child Care Subsidy (CCS), with its complicated administration process. 

These administratively burdensome procedures in their own right, combined with the need to educate families on how to complete the activity test and engage with Centrelink, compounded with the peak enrolments time of year, have provided significant stress for centre directors.  

In addition to this already high involvement process, it has become clear that there has been a range of issues affecting payments to parents and services. ACA has received a whole range of enquiries from members dealing with specific cases and problems. 

For example, we have received many contacts about the family's CCS having been adjusted way back to July 2018, often leaving the centre director in the position of having to chase a potential debt and/or families having to call Centrelink due to the unexplained change in their subsidy amount. 

This is one of several problematic scenarios brought to our attention. In some circumstances, these reported issues can be explained, but in many cases they seem to be anomalies which took service providers by surprise, resulting in increased work for those administering the system, in trying to ascertain why these problems were occurring.

Please be assured that ACA has been actively engaging with the Department of Education and Training (DET) almost daily, to seek solutions to these problems and determine whether they are individual problems or systemic problems.

DET has informed us that they are actively looking for solutions and will keep us informed. 

In the meantime, we encourage you to provide your feedback about any CCSS issues you may be experiencing in your centre, but contacting the Australian Childcare Alliance (or completing our online feedback form here.

* Please remember that if you are providing feedback about the information provided by Centrelink, we will need you to provide the time and date of the call, along with the caller ID of the person you or your family spoke to.  

Thank you to those of you who have already provided your feedback - we greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Paul Mondo
ACA National President