An audit of the Department of Education’s program for supporting families to meet the costs of childcare has found it to be “largely effective”, but key policy objectives to have suffered from the passing of time.
In her report, Design and Governance of the Child Care Package, Acting Auditor-General, Rona Mellor assessed the effectiveness of the Department’s design and governance of its Child Care Package.
Ms Mellor noted that in the December 2018 quarter more than 1.3 million children used approved child care in Australia — representing 32 per cent of Australia’s children aged 12 years and under.
“The Australian Government has been providing child care fee assistance since 1972,” Ms Mellor said.
“Between mid-2000 and mid-2018, the Child Care Benefit and Child Care Rebate were the two most widely used forms of child care fee assistance.”
She said the Department’s design of the Child Care Package was largely effective with it considering impacts on key stakeholders in the design of the package and implementing an effective engagement strategy and providing appropriate advice to the Australian Government at key stages of design and implementation.
“Objectives were developed for the package that aligned with the Government’s policy objectives,” she said.
“However, these have not been consistently stated in Departmental documents and the focus on key policy objectives in these documents, such as greater workforce participation, has diminished over time.”
She recommended that the Department ensure that the Child Care Package objectives were accurately described in internal and external documents and were consistent with the Australian Government’s key policy objectives, such as greater workforce participation.
In its response, the Department welcomed the audit’s findings and said it would use them and other observations to inform and enhance ongoing package implementation and delivery arrangements.
The Acting Auditor-General’s online report can be accessed at this PS News link and her 66-page printed report accessed at this link.
The audit team was Brendan Gaudry, Jennifer Eddie, Elizabeth Robinson and Deborah Jackson.
