Bills Digest no. 128 2009–10
Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2010
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as introduced
and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest does not have
any official legal status. Other sources should be consulted to determine
the subsequent official status of the Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage history
Purpose
Background
Financial implications
Main provisions
Contact officer & copyright details
Passage history
Family Assistance Legislation
Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2010
Date introduced: 24 February 2010
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth
Commencement: The day of Royal Assent except for Schedules 3 & 6
which commence on the day after Royal Assent, Schedules 2 & 4 which
commence on the 28th day after Royal Assent, and Schedule 5 Part 1,
Division 1 of which commences on 29 June 2007 while Division 2 commences on 16 May
2009.
Links: The relevant links to the Bill, Explanatory Memorandum
and second reading speech can be accessed via BillsNet, which is at http://www.aph.gov.au/bills/. When Bills have been passed they can
be found at ComLaw, which is at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/.
To introduce a number of refinements and
minor changes to the Family Assistance Law in the areas of Child Care Benefit
(CCB) payments to child care services, statements concerning child care usage
for parents and notification requirements where child care services cease to
operate.
The
Commonwealth Government provides CCB to users of child care services in the
form of fee reductions in most cases. To ensure that the delivery of CCB is
properly regulated child care services have, since 2009, been required to
operate using the Child Care Management System (CCMS). This system was
introduced after the passage through parliament of the Family Assistance
Legislation Amendment (Child Care Management System and Other Measures) Act
2007. The digest for the Bill that produced that Act provides extensive
background to the introduction of the CCMS.[1]
The
CCMS provides online internet access for child care services to communicate
information about the enrolment
and attendance of children in their services. This information is
provided to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
(DEEWR) which calculates entitlements to CCB and pays CCB to the services who
pass it on as reduced fees to the parents and carers of children using their services.
The
measures in this Bill all relate to payments to child care services,
obligations of child care services and the transition to the CCMS from the
previous arrangements. The measures are:
- The
introduction of Business Continuity Payments for services whose ability to
comply with reporting obligations under the CCMS has been impaired by
circumstances beyond their control, such as local emergencies like bush fires
or disruptions to internet services.
- The
introduction of increased flexibility in the requirement that child care
services provide usage statements every four weeks to parents and carers of
children using their services.
- Changing the
present mandatory suspension of a child care services’ approval for the payment
of CCB, where there have been 10 infringement notices issued in a twelve month
period, to a discretionary suspension.
- Increasing
the notification period that applies where a child care service operator
intends to cease operating a service from 30 days to 42 days.
- Clarifying
the legislative basis for the acquittal of quarterly advance payments of CCB at
the time of the transition of services to operations under the CCMS.
Financial implications
There is no financial impact from this bill.
Item 27 of Schedule 1 adds new Division 4 to part 8A of the Family Assistance (Administration) Act 1999. New
section 219RD provides for the payment of business continuity payments to
child care services in subsection (1). These payments are to be paid where a
service has not submitted reports on child care usage due to circumstances
specified in a determination under subsection (2), which specifies that the
minister must, by legislative instrument, make such a determination. That
determination would set out situations where the business continuity payment
would be made and set out the method for determining the amounts of such
payments. In general those circumstances would be those in which the service is
unable to make reports due to factors that are outside of their control.
New Section 219RE sets out how the normal payments to
a child care service are to be adjusted to recover the amount of the business
continuity payment.
Item 4 of Schedule 2 repeals subsection 219E(4) and
substitutes new subsection 219E(4). This subsection specifies that a
statement of child care usage must be provided to parent or carers of a child
using child care at least every 3 months. However it may be given for a period
shorter than three months. The period covered by the statement may be provided
for a period that is common to all users of the service.
This provision is different to the existing provision in
that the current subsection requires that statements should be issued for 4
weekly periods, which are potentially different for each user of child care.
This change is intended to provide more flexibility to
services when issuing statements.
Item 1 of Schedule 3 amends subsection 219TSQ(1) to
make suspension of a child care services’ approval for payment of CCB, in
cases where 10 infringements of civil penalty provisions have occurred within
a twelve month period, discretionary rather than mandatory. This brings the
provision into line with other suspension provisions in the Act.
Item 1 of Schedule 4 repeals subsection 219M(1) and
substitutes new subsection 219M(1). This change increases the
notification period where a child care operator decides to cease operating a
child care service from the existing 30 days to 42 days. This change allows
greater time for the department to make arrangements for affected families to
have access to child care.
Items 2 and 3 of Schedule 5 insert new sections
96A and 97B into the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care
Management System and Other Measures) Act 2007. These amendments clarify
that acquittal of quarterly advances of CCB to child care services as part of
the transition to the Child Care Management System had an appropriate
legislative basis for both recovery of amounts from services and payment of
additional amounts to services. The amendment is therefore retrospective to 29 June
2007 when the original provision took effect.
Item 1 of Schedule 6 adds new section 102 to
the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Management System
and Other Measures) Act 2007. It specifies that the payments to child care
services mentioned above come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Dale Daniels
10 March 2010
Bills Digest Service
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