ACT parents continue to face the highest costs for childcare in the nation as the sector recorded a spike in serious incidents, a Productivity Commission report shows.
In 2021, the median weekly cost of 50 hours at centre-based day care reached $610, up from $604 in the previous year. This is well-above the national average of $543 per week.
Parents also forked out the highest fees for family day care at $582 for 50 hours, but this was slightly down on the $608 per week median cost in 2020.
There were 19,734 children aged five and younger who attended childcare subsidy approved programs in the ACT, which represents 59.2 per cent of the population in that age group.
Meanwhile, 31.8 per cent children aged 6 to 12 years attended childcare subsidy approved programs, above the national average of 19.2 per cent.
Canberrans had the least access to childcare services outside of standard hours. In 2021, only 5.5 per cent of day care centres opened before 7am, below the national average of 39.5 per cent, and only 0.6 per cent of centres opened after 6:30pm.
Only 2.3 per cent of outside of hours care for school-aged children in the ACT opened before 7am, whereas in Queensland 76.8 per cent opened early.
In 2020-21, the federal and territory governments spent $7,797 per child on early education and care.
Out of the 333 approved childcare services, 78 were rated as working towards the national quality standards (NQS), 105 were meeting the NQS, 148 were exceeding NQS and two were rated excellent.
There were 217 confirmed breaches of the standards in 2020-21 across all ACT childcare services. This was a significant improvement from the previous year when there was 349 breaches recorded.
ACT childcare services appear to be the most dangerous in the country with 278.7 incidents per 100 services, above the national average of 173. South Australia had the next-highest incident rate at 230.2 incidents per 100 services.
In 2020-21, there were 811 serious incidents across service, including 609 cases involving injury, trauma or illness, 95 cases of emergency services attending and 107 cases of a child being locked in or out, being taken away or unaccounted for.
In 2019-20, there were 637 serious incidents, and in the previous year only 578 serious incidents were reported.
