And the survey says: families deserted by Turnbull’s child care transition

The Australian Childcare Alliance’s survey cuts through the Turnbull Government’s spin and exposes the truth – the transition to their new child care system has been a debacle.

The survey describes some of the horror stories, from the front line, that providers are going through in their transition to the new unfair child care system.

The government left providers to pick up the pieces of its messy transition – all the new paperwork, new registrations of educators and families, new IT and software – with many confirming they have been left in the dark and out of pocket.

When 66 per cent of providers surveyed said the transition went ‘terribly’, the Minister’s “high degree of confidence” is exposed as nothing more than arrogance and hubris.

A month and a half later, parents and providers are still battling the new system with many of these issues still not resolved.

When providers were asked; ‘Did your service’s preparation for the CCS (Child Care Subsidy) result in a smooth transition?’, there was an overwhelming response of no, and comments included:

• “Despite being organised we were let down by government and support from software company.”
• “We were in a great position until it came time to submit attendances. We have since had 0 support and repeated conflicting information in trying to resolve issues.”

Whilst providers are battling with a poorly managed transition, families are battling with a poorly designed system which unfairly leaves hundreds of thousands worse off.

Alarmingly, this report shows there are more families than first thought who are worse off in the new system – providers state in the survey that more than 1 in 3 of their families are worse off.

Working at the coal face, providers are watching as children’s access to early learning is reduced or cut completely. Providers said:

• I have had families either drop their child’s days as their only eligible for certain hours. I’ve had children who attended full time drop to 4 days as the difference in fees were massive. I’ve had children leave the service completely as the mother failed the activity test even though the dad was working full time. I’ve some families that are paying the same and some that are now paying $80 extra a fortnight.
• Families who used to receive subsidy are no longer eligible, resulting in children being pulled out of care.
• Failure of Govt to process parents eligibility in a suitable timeframe leaving them with significant out of pocket expenses.
• It has been frustrating for some families at our service – all children have additional needs but not necessarily a formal diagnosis or Carer’s allowance which would provide access to CCS hours. This has been a problem for a number of families!!!!!

The Turnbull Government promised a simpler and fairer system – instead they have presided over a complete debacle and a system that is more complex and more unfair.