00:00The figures showed it was very rare for South Australia's independent childcare regulator
00:07to take serious action against providers caught doing the wrong thing. Not a single prosecution
00:14was launched by the Education Standards Board between January 2020 and October 2024. During
00:21that time, the Board cancelled the registration of just one provider and another ten were hit
00:26with suspensions. Those figures are in contrast to nearly 10,000 incidents or complaints that were
00:32reported to the Board and resulted in no action. The Education Minister here in South Australia,
00:38Blair Boyer, says the vast majority of those complaints would have been appropriately
00:43handled. Childcare centres are required to report incidents like falls to the regulator and in many
00:49cases no further action is needed. But he's acknowledged that there were occasions during
00:54that nearly five-year period where the Education Standards Board fell short.
00:58In some cases we had a regulator that was badly under-resourced and wasn't prepared to take
01:03action. That's no longer the case and we're seeing this really big uptick now in compliance action.
01:08The Minister expects more checks will mean more child care centres will face serious penalties in
01:14the years to come. The long-term hope is that the numbers will eventually plateau,
01:18then decrease as the culture within the child care sector changes.
01:24He says,
Comments