Compliance activities

The key child care compliance activities undertaken by DEEWR Compliance Officers include:

• educating services about their obligations under family assistance law;
• conducting unannounced visits to approved child care services to monitor compliance with their obligations;
• investigating possible child care fraud.
  

To date, the most common non-compliance issues identified in reviews of child care services include:

• problems with attendance records, such as failing to note the times in and out of children in care and parents not signing/verifying children’s attendance or absence where appropriate;
• allowable and approved absences not being clearly recorded on attendance sheets and services failing to report allowable absences to the Family Assistance Office;
• services claiming Child Care Benefit for absences before a child has commenced care or after the child has ceased care;
• receipts not meeting the legal requirements, for example, not including information such as the names of the children covered by the receipt, the period to which the fee payment relates and the amount of CCB fee reductions for the period covered by the receipt.

DEEWR is also responsible for managing services’ compliance with the Child Care Quality Assurance System. For more information see Quality Child Care.

Consequences of non-compliant behaviour

Depending on the seriousness of the issue(s) identified at the service, the consequences of non-compliance can range from education for the more minor issues through to prosecution for criminal offences. The graduated responses to non-compliant activity are listed below:

• education;
• warnings;
• sanctions, including meeting additional conditions, or suspension or cancellation of a service’s Child Care Benefit approval;
• civil penalties and infringement notices;
• prosecution where criminal offences are involved;
• recovery of fraudulently received payments through legal proceedings.
  

In most cases, services will simply require further education and guidance so they can meet their responsibilities under the family assistance legislation or a child care funding agreement. However, when serious issues of non-compliance are identified further investigation and follow up compliance action will be undertaken.