New national register for child care services:

Quality ratings have been published for more than 2,000 children's services for the first time which, according to the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) “raises the bar on quality”.

“Over time, all 13,000 long day care, family day care, outside school hours care, preschools and kindergartens in the national registers will be assessed on their progress in meeting the new quality standard,” said ACECQA Board member, Rachel Hunter.

Each of the services are assessed on seven criteria and also given an overall rating on the basis of:

• Excellent
• Exceeding national standard
• Meeting national standard
• Working towards national standard, and
• Significant improvement required.

The criteria are:

1. Educational program and practice
2. Children’s health and safety
3. Physical environment
4. Staffing arrangements
5. Relationships with children
6. Partnerships with families and communities
7. Leadership and service management.

Ms Hunter said that more than half of the services assessed – over 55% – are meeting or exceeding the more challenging standards set. The rest are not

“Almost 44% of assessed services have been rated as ‘Working Towards the National Quality Standard’, which is not surprising given the more challenging benchmarks services must reach. The national standard has been designed to make services ‘reach’ – in other words, to strive for continuous improvement in quality,” she said.

But an independent online child care resource, CareforKids.com.au says the new government ratings system is putting undue pressure on the industry and doesn’t give a true picture of what parents think.

“We ran our annual Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey last month which had 2,500 responses from parents who have children in some form of child care,” said Roxanne Elliott, Founder of CareforKids.com.au.

“Just under two-thirds of these parents say the standard of care their children are receiving is ‘excellent’. Under 2% said they thought the care their children received was below average.”

Ms Elliott said that many services are “struggling to keep their heads above water” with the new national guidelines that require a lower staff-to-children ratio and more qualified staff. She said that publication of the data by government is distressing to parents and centre operators.

“Issuing figures that essentially damn child care centres for not meeting the new high standards will only serve to stress out both the child care operators, the underpaid child care workers and the parents of the children in their care.”

But Ms Hunter from ACECQA says the system is deliberately set so it is not easy to meet the new standards. 

“The rating of ‘Working Towards’ is an important part of the successful transition to new and higher standards, and does not mean children’s safety or health is at risk.”

On top of the assessment and rating process, state and territory regulatory authorities regularly carry out compliance visits and investigations to deal with breaches of regulations.

The national register can be found here.