Oversupply is an increasing issue in Australia’s early learning sector. With few barriers to entry for new or existing providers to set up new centres, the saturation of childcare centres in certain geographic areas has led to many services experiencing lower utilisation or being squeezed out of business. Planning data* predicts that there are currently over 1,000 new centres in the pipeline around the nation, which if completed could deliver another 90,000 childcare places in an already flooded market.
If not addressed, oversupply will lead to increased costs for families and may impact on the quality of services in local communities. However with the right policies in place, we can ensure a sustainable early learning sector that continues to provide families with affordable high quality early learning services, thus giving Australia’s youngest generation the best start in life.
The issue is discussed in a recent media article written by Simon Evans, which originally appeared in the Financial Review on 5 September 2018. You can read an excerpt from this article here.
In order to study this issue more closely, ACA engaged with the Department of Education and Training (DET) on two occasions to request access to national data on early learning centre occupancy levels under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. On both occasions the Department denied our request at the level of granularity required to make the data meaningful, citing limited resources and outdated technology as the barrier to delivering this data (which is collected as part of your weekly vacancy reporting).
In this context, the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA), Australian Community Children’s Services (ACCS) and the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia (ELACCA) have joined forces to commission a survey for all early learning service providers, to identify patterns in the under and oversupply of early learning services across Australia.
As a unified voice, our aim is to use the resulting data to engage with relevant government departments and planning authorities, to work towards addressing the growing issue of oversupply in some areas.
The survey collects information on a range of topics and aspects including the rates you charge per day, your occupancy rates per day and by age group.
All survey responses are confidential to the market research firm (Urban Economics) collecting the data. None of the partner organisations will have access to individual survey responses.
We encourage all services to take the time to complete this survey so that our study into this critical issue can comprehensively cover all geographic areas in Australia.
It should take around 5-10 minutes of your time.
Please note: When completing the survey, you will need to have your centre occupancy data close at hand. For those owning or managing multiple centres, we would kindly request that you complete the survey individually for each centre.
Please note: When completing the survey, you will need to have your centre occupancy data close at hand. For those owning or managing multiple centres, we would kindly request that you complete the survey individually for each centre.
If you use Xplor you may find this
document
quick guide
(69 KB)
on how to pull out the relevant data useful.
If you use QikKids you may find this document quick guide (100 KB) on how to pull out the relevant data useful.
If you use QikKids you may find this document quick guide (100 KB) on how to pull out the relevant data useful.
You can complete the survey here.
We aim to produce a report summarising the key findings within a month of the survey closing, which we will share this with the early learning sector.
If you have any questions about the survey and its process, please do not hesitate to contact Kerrianne from Urban Economics on 07 3839 1400 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
*According to data sourced from Cordell Connect.
