Auditor-General to inquire into Labor's Early Years Quality Fund

Thursday, 20 March 2014

The Auditor-General, Mr Ian McPhee PSM will inquire into Labor’s $300 million Early Years Quality Fund (EYQF) following a request from Alex Hawke MP, Federal Member for Mitchell.

“Following the release of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report into the EYQF, I was deeply concerned by the numerous probity issues raised. In my view, the program required further scrutiny which was why I requested the Auditor-General to undertake a review.” Alex Hawke said.

In his request letter to the Auditor-General, Mr Hawke raised the following issues surrounding the EYQF;

·         That the EYQF was exhausted within 12 hours of the fund opening and that no notice was provided to applicants of this happening.

·         Fifty per cent of the EYQF was allocated to large providers which represent 19 per cent of the sector.

·         A use of "First In-first served" application process instead of the competitive merit-based process required by Government and the lack of                       explanation as to why this was not used.

·         The use of the fund for wage increases for unqualified and non-contact childcare staff, which was not within the objective of the EYQF.

·         That funds went to childcare services already meeting qualification requirements and therefore the Fund failed to meet its basic objective.

·         That twelve funding agreements-under the EYQF were executed on 6 September, 2013 (one day prior to the last Federal Election while the                   Government was In Caretaker mode).

·         Perception about conflicts of interest in the actions of the Advisory Board.

·         That the Board ignored a recommendation by the Inter-governmental committee that applications should be from Individual services and                     instead allowed multi-service providers to submit one application,

·         The potential influence on the sector and the use of the Fund by the provision of unapproved and misleading information by the union, United               Voice.

·         Claims that the requirement for an enterprise agreement was used as a vehicle to increase Union membership.

“This decision by the Auditor-General  is particularly important after thousands of child care educators and operators were conned into signing new unionised enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs), despite never being able to receive a dollar from Labor’s EYQF,

“The Auditor-General’s report is expected to be completed during the Spring 2014 sitting of Parliament and will be tabled in line with legislative requirements. I look forward to seeing the Auditor-General’s report into this dodgy Labor fund.” Alex Hawke concluded.