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The Coalition’s ‘big change’ to childcare was a dud. Parents and teachers deserve better | Lisa Bryant
The Morrison government’s own report found their change to funding didn’t make services more accessible, affordable, flexible or simpler
Childcare is once again going to be a key federal election issue and several research reports about the policy area have been released in the last few days.
One of these found that access to childcare is (surprise, surprise) a huge problem, with childcare black spots existing across Australia. Another report found that children in some centres were going hungry, with some centres allocating as little as 65 cents a day per child for food.
Analysis of data at the time of the implementation of the CCS and the following 18 months shows no marked changes in access to childcare. There are though large differences in access geographically, and issues for children with additional needs.
There are mixed levels of parental satisfaction with flexibility. Capacity to change hours received the second-lowest parental satisfaction rating (only above affordability). Other aspects of flexibility were more neutrally rated by parents. These ratings have not changed following the introduction of the Package … There was little change in the hours for which care was available since September 2018.
Parents were only weakly supportive of the system being easier to understand than the previous system, with the largest group neither agreeing nor disagreeing that the CCS system is simpler.
Across all families the Package has reduced the median annual net cost of child care from $2,957 to $2,507 per annum. As a proportion of gross family income, it has fallen from 3.0 per cent to 2.7 per cent.
Fees charged by services have increased at a similar rate following the introduction of the Package to what they were before the changes.
In summary, the introduction of the Package appears to have had little impact on the viability of the sector as a whole.
ABS Labour Force Survey data, surveys of parents conducted for the evaluation and child care system administrative data show small increases in parental activity, including employment, since the Package was introduced. However, these increases are not inconsistent with increases over a period of years.
The introduction of the Package has had little impact on the overall use of child care among low and lower middle income families …There is no clear pattern on access for population subgroups, including those at a higher risk of vulnerability.
There is little evidence of any changes to the economic fundamentals of child care provision.
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