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The Federal Senate inquiry into child care services in Australia has been told that there is growing concern that childcare has been treated as a market commodity, insufficiently tied to quality outcomes for children.

We recently joined with Professor Deborah Brennan from the Social Policy Research Centre at University of NSW and Associate Professor Sue Newberry from the University of Sydney at a Senate hearing to put forward the view that children's development needs to drive child care funding models.

The Senate inquiry follows the collapse of the large, privately owned child care group, ABC Learning, despite the corporation obtaining 40% of its income from a combination of direct federal government funding through grants and indirect funding from child care rebates.

Research tells us that good quality child care can help children's development and learning – especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

But to get the best outcomes for children we need child care funding models that support quality outcomes for children not drive corporate profits.

However, there is a lack of conclusive data and information around what funding models deliver that quality care.

There is not enough evidence about the nature, structure and effectiveness of the industry, despite all the money that has been pouring into child care for nearly forty years.

The community worries that raising quality and standards will be expensive and come at great cost.

Yet there is no evidence that the billions of dollars that we are spending are necessarily being focused in the most effective ways to deliver quality of care to small children.

This suggests to Professor Brennan that Australia has unwittingly been experimenting with children’s lives, while ‘crossing our fingers and hoping for the best’.

Along with the National Foundation for Australian Women, Professors Brennan and Newberry and the Commission have called for a referral to the Productivity Commission, to explore which child care funding models promote quality outcomes for children.

This would assist Australia place decisions about funding models on an evidence based footing. It also places children’s well-being at the centre of policy making and sends a message that the purpose of childcare is to promote quality outcomes for children.

As a nation we have moved away from a previously held notion of stewardship over public resources and how recipients of public money are expected to report their use of it.

We now need new assurances, accountability and value for every single dollar that is being spent in children’s services so that the people that benefit most are not shareholders, but children.

This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. Views expressed in this message are those of the original sender and are not necessarily the views of the Commission for Children and Young People.

Gillian Calvert 
NSW Commissioner for Children and Young People

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