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1 What vacancy information is reported?
Services must report anticipated vacancies to DEEWR on a weekly basis reflecting the number of vacancies your service anticipates and is willing to fill each day of the following week.
From September 2010 services are being asked to provide more details about vacancies to improve matching of families to child care services.
Under the new arrangements services will be able to report vacancies against a full range of age groups, show ongoing full day or full session vacancies, casual vacancies, as well as half day or other care period vacancies. These arrangements will be introduced in 3 stages:
- Stage 1: Age ranges – mandatory from 1 September 2010. The age groups are:
- 0 to 24 months
- 25 to 35 months
- 36 months to school age (but not at school)
- school child
- Stage 2: Type of Care – mandatory from 10 December 2010. The care types are permanent and/or casual.
- Stage 3: Care period – mandatory from 18 April 2011. The care period is full day, half day or other session length.
Services are required to separately report vacancies against the standard definition for their service type. This is so that aggregated vacancy reporting can be undertaken by the Department. You may submit combinations of vacancy details to suit your situation which include type of care and care period, however, you must separately identify for each day of the week the number of vacancies that align with the standard vacancy definition.
The standard definition of a vacancy is:
- an ongoing full day vacancy for long day care, family day care and in-home care
- a full day vacancy for occasional care and vacation care; and
- an ongoing full session vacancy for before school care and after school care.
You should report only the number of vacancies that you able to fill in the coming week even if you are approved for more places. For example, if your service is licensed for 50 places but current staffing levels only allow the filling of 40 places you should only report vacancies you have up to the 40 places.
If you have a waiting list from which you normally fill your vacancies then you still should report these vacancies. All vacancies the service has at the time of submitting their weekly vacancies should be reported regardless of whether the vacancy is likely to be filled from a waiting list.
For more information on these new arrangements, including examples of what you should report, please see section 6.10 of the Child Care Services Handbook.
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2 How is vacancy information reported
Services are required to provide their vacancy information to the CCMS, using their child care software. Services have until 8pm local time on the Friday of each reporting week to report and update their vacancy information for the following week.
The vacancy information from CCMS is displayed on the mychild website which is updated each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and is provided to the Child Care Access Hotline.
Instructions for reporting this information can be found at section 6.10 of the Child Care Services Handbook.
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3 Why report vacancy information?
It’s a mandatory requirement for you to report your vacancy information for each week of the year that your service operates (under the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999- Child Care Benefit (Eligibility of Services for Approval and Continued Approval) Amendment Determination 2006 (No.1)).
If you do not report your vacancy data within the required timeframes, you will have contravened a civil penalty provision and may be issued with an infringement notice (a monetary penalty). A sanction may also be imposed on your service and could include suspension or cancellation of your approval, preventing you from providing CCB fee reductions to parents.
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4 How is the information used?
Vacancy information is made available on the Australian Government’s mychild website and through the Child Care Access Hotline to assist families to find child care and to help you fill any vacancies that you may have faster. It is also provided to Employment Service Providers and Centrelink. The information provided is also used by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) for program monitoring and reporting purposes.
5 What is the Child Care Access Hotline?
The Child Care Access Hotline (the Hotline) is a telephone service funded by the Australian Government that provides families with information to help them choose a child care service that meets their needs. The Hotline number for families to use is 1800 670 305.
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6 What is the mychild.gov.au website?
On the mychild website, you will find information on different types of child care, how to access assistance with the cost of child care, as well as a searchable database of local child care services. This database publishes vacancy information for all Child Care Benefit approved services and fee information from those services who have provided it.
You will also find links to other useful websites about children's health and wellbeing, parenting and family support services.
If you notice that the website is showing vacancy information different to what you have reported or if you are experiencing difficulties, contact the CCMS Helpdesk on 1300 667 276 between 8.00 am and 6.00 pm AEST Monday to Friday.
7 More information
If you would like more information on the mandatory reporting requirements, contact the CCMS Helpdesk on 1300 667 276.
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