Loophole aids poor childcare operators
THOUSANDS of children are being put at risk because of a childcare loophole that lets dodgy operators buy centres without a new safety audit.
The flaw – which federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham has vowed to pursue – has let some of the most controversial childcare providers into our schools.
More than 1080 childcare and after-school care centres around the country have not been audited to make sure they are run properly even after new owners have arrived.
Even Camp Australia, which was black-listed by the NSW Government in late 2016 after a string of shocking inci- dents, was allowed to take over two facilities in public schools only months later.
Some of the centres transferred to Camp Australia in 2016 have not had their quality certificates checked since 2013.
Senator Birmingham said he was “disappointed to see out-of-date registers despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the Commonwealth had delivered to help state and territories administer (childcare standards)”.
“It’s entirely up to states and territories to assess and rate early childhood education and I’ll be raising this issue with my state and territory colleagues,” he said.
Sector bosses are warning that parents have little idea who actually runs the centres.
Network of Community Activities chief executive Robyn Monro Miller said the quality ratings were “no longer an accurate reflection”.
“It’s really easy for some providers to sell an image, but when you look at the service delivery level … the quality is not there,” she said.