Dodgy daycare providers ripping off taxpayers by using ‘phantom children’

EXCLUSIVE: DODGY daycare providers have been caught ripping off taxpayers by pocketing subsidies for children that are living overseas.

The federal government stripped or suspended funding from 52 family day care fraudsters for rorting the $7.5 billion childcare subsidy system last financial year.

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DODGY daycare providers have been caught ripping off taxpayers by pocketing subsidies for children that are living overseas.

The federal government stripped or suspended funding from 52 family day care fraudsters for rorting the $7.5 billion childcare subsidy system last financial year.

Dodgy daycare providers have been caught out. Picture: iStock

The childcare cheats had claimed taxpayer subsidies to care for “phantom’’ children who did not exist or for swapping their own children with friends to claim subsidies. Some carers were overseas at the time they claimed to have been looking after children at taxpayers’ expense.

One Western Sydney daycare had its funding approval cancelled last September after allegedly billing taxpayers for 10,000 sessions of childcare when the children or the educators were overseas.

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“One educator had been overseas for a year,’’ a spokesman for federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said.

“The service also reported that it was providing care on days when children were in fact at a different child care service.’’

The spokesman said the daycare had “argued its educators were responsible for the non-compliance’’.

“However, consistent with the law, the department found that it is the responsibility of the service to ensure it complies with the law,’’ he said.

Federal Minister for Education and Training Senator Simon Birmingham. Picture: AAP

“It also found that the service did not have adequate governance arrangements to ensure it complied with its responsibilities. The department found that the operator was not a suitable person to operate a child care service and cancelled the approval.’’

The operator of the Western Sydney daycare in question told The Daily Telegraph that his centre had shut down. “That was a long time ago, that was September last year,’’ he said.

Senator Birmingham aid the federal government’s crackdown on family day care had saved almost $1 billion in subsidy payments over the past three years.