EXCERPTS
Wages, costs and archaic planning laws have created an inflexible childcare system and major changes are needed, including schools-based centres.
Early Childhood Australia will today release a major report funded by the federal government that says wage costs and industrial issues are immediate barriers to the introduction of care outside standard working hours. But family day care and nannies could go some way to addressing the problem.
ECA chief executive Samantha Page said the Early Childhood Flexibility Practices and Patterns report drew on extensive survey data and case studies.
"This report shows that flexibility in early childhood services doesn't just mean extended hours, but could mean flexible sessions and enrolment, flexible locations and offering flexible services that meet the holistic needs of families,'' she said. "For example, some early childhood services are collaborating with community services and other early childhood services to support the broader needs of families."
Ms Page said the report showed that in-home care and family daycare services could offer greater flexibility for families compared with other service types, such as long daycare.
"Family daycare and in-home care services are more likely to cater for shift workers and parents with changing work hours, so moves by governments to increase access to these services may help to improve flexibility for these parents," she said.
Ms Page said some centres implementing flexible services encountered significant barriers, including a lack of demand from parents, and workforce and cost issues.
The report argues for the removal of arbitrary local government restrictions on opening hours to help services to immediately improve flexibility for parents working outside of the traditional nine-to-five working day. Ms Page said a major barrier was the lack of availability of early childhood places in flexible locations. "Developing under-utilised land for early childhood education and care may help to improve the availability,'' she said.
Under the Children's Services Award, ordinary hours are worked between 6am and 6.30pm. Overtime is paid at the rate of time and a half for the first two hours and double time thereafter. Of long daycare services surveyed, just 16.3 per cent indicated there was no cost impact on their services from implementing flexible practices.