Dear Service Provider,
As of 2 May, the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) no longer deducts hours spent in pre-school or school from NCS awards (wraparound care). This means that parents may use their full awarded subsidised NCS hours for pre-school or school-aged children regardless of term week.
Please note that subsidised NCS hours cannot be claimed while a child is in ECCE or school.
They can be used outside of school or ECCE hours, for example:
- childcare used before preschool or school starts in the morning (e.g. breakfast club)
- after-school childcare
- childcare used outside of preschool or school term weeks
Summary of change
| What is changing? | What is not changing? |
- The idea of ‘wrap-around care’ is being removed from the NCS
- There will no longer be a distinction between term and non-term hours on NCS claims and the Early Years Hive
- The maximum hours will be available to claim on the CHICK for all award weeks
- Services will only have one ‘Claimed Hours’ option to enter per week. The Non-Term Hours option is being removed.
- Where previously Claimed Hours and Non-Term Hours were visible as separate entries on the Allocations page with different Allocation Sources, there will now only be one single entry for that week with the Allocation Source of ‘Claimed Hours’.
| - Claims can and should still be amended when providing increased hours of care during ECCE or school holiday weeks
- Claims (new or amended) must still be confirmed by the parent before they are active and payments to service providers can flow
- You can only claim for hours the child is attending your service
- Hours claimed cannot exceed the operating hours of the service
- NCS hours should not be claimed for the hours that a child is attending ECCE or school
|
NCS applicants have been notified of this change and have been directed to the ‘How do I use my NCS award?’ section of the NCS FAQ for further information. Please see the questions in this section for clarification for how and when NCS hours can be claimed by parents.
