The closure of a loophole, that allowed childcare providers to receive subsidies for minding their own children, is saving taxpayers almost $8 million a week, new data shows.
The so-called “child swapping” loophole was closed by the Federal Government in October, and statistics from the Education Department showed this move was saving the Government $7.7 million a week, with weekly subsidy claims plummeting to just over $500,000.
Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said too many people were making invalid claims.
“It was never intended, nor envisaged, that family day care operators would be paid in effect to look after their own children and what we should be looking to do is ensure that child care is as accessible and affordable as possible for those families who are most reliant on it to juggle work and family,” Birmingham said.
The senator has also reassured providers that only those rorting the system are being targeted.
“All of our childcare reforms, including the ban on child swapping, are drafted very carefully to ensure that we take into consideration any other impacts where there might be legitimate cause for certain practices and where people are in remote circumstances or where children may have special needs that warrant the care of a different family day care provider,” he said.
“That’s permitted under the changes that we’ve brought in.”
The loophole’s closure coincides with a widespread crackdown, including an increase of compliance checks and the recovery of incorrect childcare payments, tipped to save another $283 million.
Senator Birmingham has promised the overhaul will help keep costs down, amid predictions fees will rise by 14 per cent by July 2017.
The Department of Social Services expects the costs of long day care to increase 6.5 per cent this financial year, and 7.3 per cent by July 2017.
That would mean fees for a handful of day care centres in Sydney could hit $200 a day, and $150 a day in parts of inner Melbourne.
But Senator Birmingham said most other centres would be much cheaper.
“And if they are being charged in some instances, they are clearly outliers and that’s why I would encourage parents to scrutinise very carefully what they’re being charged [for] and to quiz those sorts of service providers,” he said.
“Overall though, we are going, in our reforms, to apply an hourly fee limit of $11.50.”
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Top Comments
My understanding is that two separate families would operate a family day care but just swap children with the other family. Meaning no additional people were actually in the workforce or benefiting from the day care set up. It was more a direct swap then anything else
Or just claiming the other is looking after their kids and getting CCR for looking after their own kids
I have an issue with people rorting the system for tax-payer funds that they are not entitled to...
I haven't really looked into it, and the article didn't cover specifics, but I assume "child-swapping" is when Person A works today while Person B looks after their children, then B works tomorrow while A looks after their children... ?? Which I don't think is really rorting the system. If I work as an accountant today, and as a child-care provider tomorrow, I still feel as though I have worked 2 days. A day looking after someone else's children is not a day off. It's not like I am free to do as I like on my "off-day". If I work as a family day-care provider both those days, I am somehow entitled to be paid?
If, however, child swapping is when two families both claim the other is minding their children when they aren't... bad. bad. bad.
I believe the latter is what they are trying to fix.
A Family Day Care Operator can only look after 4 kids under 4. If the have one (or more) kids under 4 of their own, they can only look after 3 (or less) fee-paying kids.
They don't get paid or get CCR for looking after their own kid, and rightly so.
However, if they have another operator in a similar scenario each claims they are looking after the others kid and both get CCR back for looking after their own child.
Sadly what this is also stopping is Family DayCare operators from utilising other centres to send their kids legitimately, ie for socialising, appropriate age-group for kid, etc.
Not an easy one :(