Child Care Subsidy Information
The Child Care Subsidy (CCS) is a means and activity tested payment provided by the Australian Government to assist families will the cost of Early Childhood Education and Care fees. Terrey Hills Early Learning Centre is a CCS approved service and families enrolled will be eligible to claim the payment depending on their personal circumstances.
For more information about CCS, you can visit the Starting Blocks website or contact the Department of Human Services. The framework offers a vision where ‘all children experience learning that is engaging and builds success for life’. It has been designed so that early childhood services will be able to develop their own strategies to implement its objectives.
ELIGIBILITY FOR THE CHILD CARE SUBSIDY.
From 7 March 2022, families with more than one child aged 5 or younger will get a higher Child Care Subsidy (CCS). Read more about Higher CCS.
Some basic requirements must be satisfied for an individual to be eligible to receive Child Care Subsidy for a child. These include:
- The age of the child (must be 13 or under and not attending secondary school)
- The individual, or their partner, meets the residency requirements.
- The child meeting immunisation requirements
- To be eligible for Child Care Subsidy the individual must be liable to pay for care provided, the care must be delivered in Australia by an approved child care provider, and not be part of a compulsory education program.
How does it Work?
There are three factors that will determine a family’s level of Child Care Subsidy. These are:
The combined income of parents
The activity level of both parents
Type of the chosen child care service
The Child Care Subsidy will be paid directly to providers to be passed on to families as a fee reduction. Families will make a co-contribution to their child care fees and pay to the provider the difference between the fee charged and the subsidy amount.
The New Child Care Package will also provide targeted additional fee assistance for vulnerable families through the CCS Net.
PRIORITY OF ACCESS FOR CHILD CARE CENTRES
t is a condition of approval and continued approval for Child Care Benefit (CCB) purposes that services must comply with family assistance law.
The Priority of Access Guidelines are set out in the Child Care Benefit (Eligibility of Child Care Services for Approval and Continued Approval) Determination 2000.
The Priority of Access Guidelines must be used by approved services to allocate available child care places where there are more families requiring care than places available.
When filling vacant places, a service must fill them according to the following priorities:
A child at risk of serious abuse or neglect
A child of a single parent who satisfies, or of parents who both satisfy, the work, training, study test
Any other child
Within these main Priority categories, priority should also be given to children in:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
- Families which include a disabled person
- Families which include an individual whose adjusted taxable income does not exceed the lower income threshold of $43,727 for 2015-2016 or who or whose partner is on income support
- Families from a non-English speaking background
- Socially isolated families
Under the Priority of Access Guidelines a child care service may require a Priority 3 child only to vacate a place to make room for a higher priority child. The service can only do so if
From 7 March 2022, if you have more than one child aged 5 or younger in care, you may get a higher subsidy. This will apply for one or more of your children.
Who will get the higher subsidy
You’ll get the higher subsidy if all of these apply:
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- you get or will be eligible for CCS
- your family’s combined income is under $354,305
- you have more than one CCS eligible child aged 5, or younger.
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If you have more than one child aged 5 or under we’ll assess which children get the higher subsidy by working out:
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- the ‘standard rate child’
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- the ‘higher rate child’ or the ‘higher rate children’.
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The ‘standard rate child’ is usually your eldest CCS eligible child aged 5 or under. For this child, you’ll continue to get the CCS rate that you’re eligible for based on your family income estimate. This is known as the standard CCS rate. You can check the current standard CCS percentages based on family income.
The ‘higher rate child’ refers to your younger eligible child or children. You’ll get the higher subsidy rate for them.
For children born on the same date, such as twins, we’ll automatically determine one child as the ‘standard rate child’. We’ll then apply the higher rate to other eligible children.
We won’t pay the higher subsidy for sessions of In Home Care (IHC). This is because IHC is subsidised for each family, rather than for each child. IHC will continue to be paid the standard CCS rate.
You’ll continue to get your standard rate of CCS for any eligible children aged 6 and above. If you have one child aged 5 or under you’ll continue to receive your standard rate of CCS. The higher subsidy rate only applies if you have more than one eligible child aged 5 or under.
If your child has stopped using child care
From 11 July 2022, if your child has stopped using child care for at least 26 continuous weeks, they won’t be eligible for CCS.
We’ll reassess your family if one or more of your children stop using child care. We’ll check to see if any other children still using child care can get the higher CCS rate from 11 July 2022 onwards.
If you decide not to use child care you can contact us to end your child’s CCS eligibility.
If your child starts to attend care again you’ll need to submit a new claim for CCS for that child.
How to check your CCS percentage
You can check your current CCS percentage in your Centrelink online account through myGov. To do this:
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- select the MENU
- select My family
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- from this menu select Child Care
- select Child Care Subsidy summary.
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How much the higher subsidy is
You’ll get a 30% higher subsidy for your ‘higher rate child’. This is a 30% increase on your standard CCS percentage. We’ll cap this at a maximum of 95%.
You’ll continue to get your standard CCS percentage for your ‘standard rate child’ and any children aged 6 or above.
You can check the current standard CCS percentages based on family income.
You can also check how the changes affect your rate on the Starting Blocks website using the estimator tool.
Find more detailed examples of how the higher subsidy works in different circumstances in our case studies.
When you’ll get the higher subsidy
We’ll automatically work out the higher subsidy for your family and start paying it from 7 March 2022.
Combined families
Combined families are families where each parent or carer gets CCS for different children in their family.
If you’re in a combined family, we’ll start paying the higher subsidy automatically from July 2022. We’ll back pay any higher subsidy you were eligible for between 7 March and July 2022. You’ll continue to get your standard CCS percentage during this time.
If you want to get the higher subsidy straight away, you can choose one parent or carer to claim CCS for all children in your family. This person must make a new CCS claim as soon as possible to get the higher subsidy. We can only backdate claims up to 28 days. If you’re a parent or carer claiming for a child, you’ll need to contact your child care service. Speak with them about starting a new enrolment for that child.
A small number of combined families may get the higher subsidy in March 2022. This will happen if you’re eligible for higher CCS in your own right. For example, if you have claimed CCS for 2 eligible children and the other parent or carer has claimed for other children in the family.
We’ll still assess your combined family as a whole from July 2022. When we do this, we’ll pay the higher subsidy for any other eligible children who have been claimed for by the other parent or carer.
What you need to do
You don’t need to do anything to get the higher subsidy.
We’ll automatically work out if you’re eligible. If you are, we’ll apply the higher subsidy to any eligible children in your family and start paying it to your child care service to reduce your fees.
We’ll send you a letter once we’ve worked out your new higher subsidy percentage. The letter will let you know what your new CCS percentage is.
You can view your letters in your myGov Inbox or through your Express Plus Centrelink mobile app.
Learn more about the Childcare Subsidy at the dedicated site of https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/child-care-subsidy