Five complaints about southern ECE centres

FIVE complaints about early childhood education (ECE) centres in Otago and Southland were among 331 across the country, investigated by the Ministry of Education in 2016.

A new report, released by the ministry this week, showed the national total had decreased from 342 in 2015.

Sector enablement and support deputy secretary Katrina Casey said the ministry started releasing information on complaints about ECE services in 2014, to give parents confidence it would take all complaints seriously and act upon them.

Of the complaints investigated in 2016, 163 were upheld, meaning standards had not been met or the investigation found something the service was required to improve.

In 2016, the ministry investigated and upheld more complaints than in previous years.

The ministry could not provide details of the five Otago and Southland investigations yesterday, but a spokeswoman said no services had their licences cancelled.

Complaints lodged nationwide included concerns about facility governance and management, fraud, health and safety, noise, supervision practices, adulttochild ratios, alleged physical and sexual abuse, breaches of child privacy and protection orders, and overcharging of fees.

One investigation found a teacher had eaten a child’s lunch and asked personal questions about the child’s family situation. The investigation was upheld.

Another looked into a complaint about a child being found unresponsive and staff failing to ring an ambulance. It too was upheld, the ECE service was placed on a provisional licence and the centre manager resigned. The ministry directed the service to do a full review of its emergency procedures to improve staff responses to emergency situations.

The death of a child following an incident on a slide at another ECE, was also investigated.

The service was placed on a provisional licence while Worksafe and New Zealand Police investigated, but neither agency pressed charges. The service was returned to a full licence and a staff member subsequently left the service.

Ms Casey said New Zealand’s licensing standards for ECE centres were among the best in the world and services needed to meet these standards to retain their full licence.

In 2016, 98% of the 4609 ECE services held a full licence.

‘‘Every complaint we receive is treated seriously.

‘‘We assess each complaint, and if a service falls short of the standards, we impose conditions for improvement or shut the service down.

‘‘We continue to look at ways to improve our management of complaints and to use the insights from our investigations to improve our services.’’

‘‘Nothing is more important than the safety and wellbeing of our children.’’

She said complaints reported in 2017 would be published by the end of June.