Sydney childcare vacancies: City parents face huge waiting lists while west struggles to fill places
When it comes to childcare in Sydney, it really is a tale of two cities. Exclusive figures reveal where the shortages are and where there are places to spare.
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When it comes to finding childcare in Sydney, it really is a tale of two cities.
Exclusive figures obtained from the Department of Education under Freedom of Information laws reveal that while some local government areas are still suffering from a chronic shortage of childcare, others have hundreds of vacancies that go unfilled each day.
The figures show the hardest places to find childcare in Sydney were on the lower north shore, the eastern suburbs, parts of the inner west and Manly including Hunters Hill, Lane Cove, Woollahra, and Strathfield.
Centres in these areas typically reported having two vacancies or less each day while waiting lists for the most sought after centres run up to three years.
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Meanwhile, the outer suburbs including Campbelltown, Blacktown, Liverpool, Parramatta and Penrith report between 500 and 1200 vacancies per day and have as many as 120 services per area.
The glut in services has seen some centres struggle to fill vacancies and there are reports that some centres have been forced to close their doors.
“There’s no doubt there’s a dearth of places closer to the city where the operating costs are much higher but in suburban areas of western Sydney, where real estate may be more accessible, there are pockets of oversupply,” Early Childhood Australia CEO Samantha Page said.
The extent of the problem, revealed today in the comparative data released to NewsLocal, poses a major problem for the Federal Government as it prepares to respond to the Productivity Commission’s report into the childcare system.
Industry insiders blame a lack of coordination between the three levels of government for the worsening situation.
For example, Blacktown has 133 childcare centres, of which 122 report they have a combined total of 860 vacancies each day.
But in Manly, where there are 2972 children aged five and under, there are only 18 childcare centres, most with less than two vacancies each day.
Strathfield, where there are 1924 children aged under five, has only seven childcare centres with five reporting a total of 30 vacancies.
In Woollahra there are 15 long day care centres to cater for 3027 children aged under five. Seven of the centres report that they have 20 vacancies between them.
And the picture may be even more bleak for parents in areas of chronic shortages because many centres continue to report vacancies while at the same time running waiting lists for as many as 200 families.
“This is the complexity of planning for children services and we need to get better at it and try to ensure we provide some sort of incentives to providers to go where the need is and assist them with the barriers that exist in the high density areas,” Ms Page said.
“It is much more costly to set up a centre near the CBD than it is in a suburban area, particularly a new development.”
Ms Page also called on councils to update outdated planning controls to make their areas more attractive and viable for prospective operators.
She said councils should remove caps on the number of places at each centre.
“This is a hangover because we now have national quality standards so there’s no reason why you’d restrict a centre to 40 places, in fact that would be unviable for most,” Ms Page said.
Childcare NSW CEO Brianna Casey said lack of planning coordination is a major issue.
“In some areas you are facing wait lists of years not months, yet the suburb next door you can have no problems getting into,” she said.
“We need councils speaking with state planning departments and the federal government about whether or not services are required in an area.
“And if they’re not, whether or not they should be granting licences to new operators.”
The data reveals there is a huge difference in the number of services available, with many more centres in suburbs further away from the city.
Hunters Hill has only one centre while Bankstown has 95.
The areas with most vacancies were Liverpool (1240), Campbelltown (1120), Blacktown (860) and Parramatta (560).
Penrith, Fairfield and Gosford reported at least 500 vacancies each day on average.
Director of Betty Spears childcare at Tempe Cathy McCarthy said parents should be able to choose childcare based on indicators of quality.
“But for many families their choices are limited by cost and availability which is tied to where you live and work,” she said
Source: Department of Education, September quarter 2013. Long daycare reported vacancies by LGA
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