Its a brave new world of universal free childcare !!!!
LAST UPDATED : 20th April 2020 12:15 PM AEST - Added information on Supplementary Payments
Question: From 6/4/20 until 28/6/20 we as a Centre have no choice but to go with the new ECE Care Relief Payment and not submit care to access CCS and not collect any gap fee from families? Will we only receive the 50% weekly payment from now on after this current week ending 5/4/20 CCS has been paid to Centre? Until now we were still running as normal.
So how do we keep the doors open ?
Basically you are right, the ECE will more or less cover the normal CCS you would have received and now you cant collect the gap from the parents, however there are options.
The last CCS payment and the first ECE payment landed in the first week of the ECEC period. Additionally the payment for the period 15th June to 28th June has been pre-paid on the 9th April.
The government is expecting centres to also sign up for ‘Job Keeper’ and hoping that as a result it will plug some / all of the gap. ‘Job Keeper’ has been extended to a wider range of providers.
If you haven’t already done so do register at your earliest opportunity
Job keeper does cover long term casual & part time as well as full time.
And there is also the PAYG relief announced earlier.
If your centre is experiencing exception circumstances you can apply for suplementary payments.
Details about the package can be downloaded from the Departments website.
You can apply via an online form.
What tips are there for completing the Exceptional Circumstance Supplementary Payment application?
Within the first four weeks of operation of the Relief Package, services can only be assessed as eligible for a supplementary payment once. After the first four weeks, arrangements will be reviewed and any changes will be communicated to providers. Where a service’s application is rejected due to inaccurate or incomplete information the service can reapply within the four weeks. Services are encouraged to read the supporting information and the examples provided at relevant questions when completing an application.
If your application is inaccurate or incomplete it will be rejected and you will need to reapply to be considered for a supplementary relief payment. Common reasons for rejection include:
Where there are errors in critical identification or registration details the department is unable to process the application. Invalid applications will be rejected and services will need to reapply to be considered for a supplementary payment.
Common errors include:
Applications that do not include enough evidence to support the claim will not be approved and services will need to reapply to be considered for a supplementary payment.
Common errors include:
All services must continue to record attendance for the children in their care. If a service is doing this through their third party software, the reports from this software can be used as evidence. This would show the enrolment IDs, attended hours and session hours.
When preparing supporting documents, personal information including names and dates of birth must be redacted. Multiple attachments can be provided in a zip file.
Where a service finds they have made a mistake on an application after it has been submitted, this cannot be corrected without submitting a new application. Corrections lodged via email cannot be considered.
Common errors include:
Its a rat’s nest but between these they are hoping that will get you through.
The final option would be to opt out of CCS for the duration , receive no CCS or ECE and then be free to charge parents as you wish. Apparently that’s a thing. I’m not recommending this one just adding it in reluctantly for completeness.
There really are a lot of details missing but this is happening from 6th April 2020.
Yikes !!
Resources
https://www.dese.gov.au/covid-19/childcare/childcare-faq
https://www.dese.gov.au/covid-19/childcare/childcare-faqfamilyinhomecare
https://www.dese.gov.au/covid-19/childcare
https://employment.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_06DZFbS8QOvBahn