C2002/2620, Transcript of Proceedings [2003] AIRCTrans 1868 (21 May 2003)

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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS


O/N 2537

AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIAL

RELATIONS COMMISSION

JUSTICE GIUDICE, PRESIDENT
SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT MARSH
COMMISSIONER SMITH

C2002/2620

VICTORIAN LOCAL AUTHORITIES AWARD 2001

Application under section 113 of the Act by
the Australian Municipal, Administrative,
Clerical and Services Union to vary the above
award re variations to clauses 21.2.1, 23.1.11(b),
23.1.11(c) and 23.1.11(d) of the above award

MELBOURNE

10.25 AM, TUESDAY, 6 MAY 2003

Continued from 13.8.02

CONDUCTED ON SITE AT GOLD STREET CHILDCARE CENTRE, COLLINGWOOD

PN77

JUSTICE GIUDICE: The Commission is in session and Ms Bornstein would you start off the inspection please.

PN78

MS J. BORNSTEIN: Yes, thank you, your Honour. Discussions have taken place between representatives of the parties and subject to the concurrence of the Commission it has been agreed that there will be several brief introductions, one from the manager of child-care for the municipality and the other from the director of this childcare centre. It is then proposed that we will break into small groups for the purposes of a walk-through the centre to allow members of the bench to familiarise themselves with the work of child-care workers in this centre.

PN79

Subject to any questions that the Tribunal might have or any comments that my learned friends might wish to make, perhaps I could pass over to the manager of the centre.

PN80

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes.

PN81

MS C. FAELIS: Thank you. My name is Carmen Faelis and I am the Manager of Family Services for the City of Yarra and would like to welcome the members of the Industrial Relations Commission and the other parties to this case on behalf of the City of Yarra, particularly, on Gold Street Children's Centre. Gold Street is one of three council managed childcare centres and there are 22 other childcare centres in the municipality but this is one of the three that council manages.

PN82

I am going to pass you on to Judy who will give an overview, basically, of the centre itself, but it has been in operation for 26 years, not from this site, just from two or three houses down the street. It is licensed for 50 places and operates at 46 child-care places. So, Judy will just give an overview more about the centre itself.

PN83

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Thank you.

PN84

MS J. SHERRY: Hello, Judy Sherry from Gold Street Children's Centre, Co-ordinator at this point in time. Thank you very much for our 25 years. Last year we celebrated in grand style - 25 years which is a wonderful achievement in child-care and everybody who has ever worked at Gold Street attended, so, that was great, so about 14 or 15 other staff came for that lovely event. And as Carmen said the centre used to be next door which is three houses, sort of - have been - that was developed specifically for child-care. And then we moved here in 1991 to this lovely new centre.

PN85

Our staff, at the moment, we have seven permanent staff, one kitchen staff and myself and we have occasional care workers that come in for 25 hours SNIS funding, so we have four special needs children at the centre and each one at the moment receives five hours, so we get a worker to come in and assist with the program which is really good. Our centre opens from 7.30 in the morning until 6 pm at night and we have four shifts and this allows for - to make sure that we have enough staff to cover our very poor ratios at the moment.

PN86

We have one staff member for every five under the age of three and one staff member for children over the age of five. So - but at the moment we have a lot of our babies that are here until about 5.30 at night so we are needing about three or four staff almost to 6 o'clock. So, would you like to talk about fees?

PN87

MS BORNSTEIN: Can I just emphasise that - I think, Judy - it might be just the nerves this morning - but the child-care regulations speculate that one staff member to five children under three and one to 15 over three year old, so just to clarify that.

PN88

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Thank you.

PN89

MS SHERRY: Our fees - our weekly fee at the moment is $190 per week. The daily rate is 43 and we also have a half day rate of $25 for an am and $20 for a pm session. A lot of our children - parents here qualify for child-care benefit so that reduces their daily fee quite a bit. Our centre is accredited for three years and at the moment we are just waiting for our - we had a reviewer - a validator come to our centre for our last accreditation round and we are hoping to get a high standard.

PN90

MS BORNSTEIN: You can talk about the numbers of children.

PN91

MS SHERRY: Yes, at the moment we have 43 children at the centre. We have 15 kindergarten children, that is four to five, a kindergarten teacher. We have 15 four to three year old children with two staff members and we have 10 two to three year old children with two staff members and 10 nought to two year old with two staff members. Child-care workers at the moment receive two hours per week program planning which is very, very difficult for them because there is a lot of work involved with accreditation, keeping up with regulations.

PN92

The kitchen, we have had food safety plan out - there is a lot of documentation that has to happen. A number of families - at the moment we have 72 families and about 80 children which means there is a lot of children's records that have to be kept up to date at all times. Staff have to - they have to do observations on the children frequently and through these observations they then have to set out strategies for their learning development and they cover five areas of development. And once these strategies have been put in place they then have to be evaluated, at least, monthly.

PN93

They also have to then program for the children - each group has to program for all the children, that is, indoor and outdoor programs and ensuring that they also have the observations or strategies linked in to the children's program. And at all times by the staff program they are always thinking of the staff philosophy. There must be a link between the philosophy, the program and observations, so, it is pretty full-on here during the day.

PN94

MS BORNSTEIN: You mentioned - perhaps I could ask you this as a point of clarification. Five areas for learning in terms of development of strategies, what are those areas?

PN95

MS SHERRY: It is gross motor, fine motor, cognitive, social and emotional development and language, of course, is very important. So, all of these have to be taken into consideration for a program ensuring that staff, you know, have all the educational equipment and resources that they need for these programs.

PN96

MS BORNSTEIN: And in terms of language - I would also ask this as part of the overview. How many children would come from non-english speaking backgrounds and what impact would that have on language development strategies?

PN97

MS SHERRY: Well, at the moment we would have, probably, about 15 children from non-English speaking backgrounds at the centre. Some of the children speak good English but their parents don't. So - but the children that do have problems we have - City of Yarra has its resource centre, it is called Children's Service Resource Unit. We have a multicultural centre and other areas that we can go out and get all this information or so - - -

PN98

MS BORNSTEIN: And they assist in the development of those strategies?

PN99

MS SHERRY: They assist - they actually come to the centre, if needed, and they help to set strategies with staff. And sometimes there might be a staff member from another centre who will come and - from a resource centre - who will come and visit the centre and actually spend time with that child if they are having difficulty settling in. So - anything else at all - - -

PN100

MS BORNSTEIN: You told the Commission about the fees and that some parents qualify for a child-care benefit. Do we understand that is a subsidy - a means tested subsidy? How does that - - -

PN101

MS SHERRY: It is a means tested subsidy through the Federal Government and parents need to go to the Family Assistance Office and approach them and tell them that they would like to apply for a child-care benefit. And once there they then will receive forms that they need to fill out and they will be given a percentage based on their income and then the Family Assistance Office then send me notification and tell me how much. And then - of course, the fees have been struck by the City of Yarra so this all goes into the computer and we come with a daily or weekly fee.

PN102

MS BORNSTEIN: And perhaps for my assistance ..... point of clarification, you mentioned a small number of children with special needs and the support that is arranged for them. Does the centre play - do the staff in the centre play any role in assessing children in terms of identifying that they have special needs or is this known when they come to the centre?

PN103

MS SHERRY: No, it is not known, we have had two children over the last two years that we have found to have had quite substantial problems. So, we have - the staff, of course, notify me and then what I do is - I have to speak with the parent and just say, you know - if we suspect that maybe the child might have a hearing problem and we will just ask them have you ever had your child's ears checked out and staff feel you have to be very careful and use the correct words so we don't upset parents. It is quite a big thing, as you would know, a child with a disability.

PN104

MS FAELIS: Do you want to mention RDOs.

PN105

MS SHERRY: Yes, yes, yes, just getting to that. And then what we would do is possibly ring the Infant and Maternal Health Centre to assist us and see the history of the child because we have permission to do that. And once that we have established that maybe there is a problem we then get in touch with the Children's Service Development Officers who work for a multi cultural centre, a city mission - they are funded by the Federal Government. They then, with permission from the parent, would come out and observe the child and maybe refer that child for more tests and then if there is, maybe a global delay or a problem with that child - and then the Children's Services Development Officer would then apply for funding for an assistant for that child.

PN106

So at the moment we have four children that we have discovered there has been problems, so - and it is really good that they are making great progress and staff work very hard with all these other people from our community. I am just trying to think - - -

PN107

JUSTICE GIUDICE: All right, are there any other questions from anybody else? You will need to come near a microphone if you want to ask a question.

PN108

MS SHERRY: I am just wondering if I have left anything out or - - -

PN109

MR L. MALONEY: Laurie Maloney is my name, Judy, from the Australian Childcare Centres Association. Could I just ask you. The annual budget for the centre, who determines the budget?

PN110

MS SHERRY: All right. Well, I will hand you over to, maybe, Louise.

PN111

MS FAELIS: Carmen Faelis, Manager, Family Services. Perhaps if I can explain the structure that we have within council. Judy is the Centre Co-ordinator and she reports to Louise Dorrat who is at the back who is the Program Leader for centre-based care which includes Long Day Care, Pre-Schools and Occasional Care Services. Sarah Vallance is the Early Childhood Services Co-ordinator who is standing right next to her. That is the structure and the support that council puts into the services. The budget is worked between Judy and Louise Dorrat - put in a recommended budget based on expenditure required for the centre to run and the income that is anticipated to be received for the following year. It then goes up, obviously, through the ranks of council, through the Co-ordinator, myself and then for council to make the final approval.

PN112

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Thank you. Does anybody else want to put anything on the record at this stage? No? Well, will we conclude the transcript at that point? Yes. Thank you.

SHORT ADJOURNMENT [10.41am]

[2.26pm]

CONDUCTED ON SITE AT ROWVILLE CHILDREN'S CENTRE, ROWVILLE

PN113

MR JOSE: I will start again. Welcome on behalf of Knox City Council to Rowville children's Centre and particularly to the babies' room; we think it is an appropriate place to start. Knox City Council I suppose has a proud history of being involved in children's services. Nearly 30 per cent of our staff of over 1000 work in children's services across council and this is one of our five long day care centres and one occasional care centre. So we support almost 220 full time places per week which is close to 875 children across the network.

PN114

Council supports this network both financially and in people terms. This year's budget we are looking at putting in about $440,000 of our own Council contribution to the running of the child-care centres and, for instance, this centre costs about $430,000 to run per year with a subsidy of about 91,000. So it costs about $1900 per week as a contribution to keep the centre open. That is part of Council's commitment I suppose to its community, particularly in Rowville being a growing community, still with a lot of young families and probably not a high income area as well we feel.

PN115

You have picked that up from driving around; a lot of poverty behind the brick veneer walls. I don't intend to talk very long except to say welcome. I hope that you get a lot out of your visit today. Elaine, who is our - not only our co-ordinator of our child-care network, she is also a director of our occasional care centre, and Lisa and Elaine are our two directors here and I think Elaine is going to try and just outline the arrangements to make your visit and your observation and discussion as informative as possible. We are proud of this 35 place centre. I think it has been going since 1987 and services a huge number of families in the area.

PN116

I will hand over to Elaine at this point and hope you enjoy your afternoon.

PN117

MS ROGERS: My name is Elaine Rogers and I am the co-ordinator of the network. What we thought we would do today, because there are so many of us, that you divide into three groups and you can choose which three groups you want to go into and then Elaine, Elaine and Lisa - myself - will walk you through each individual area and we will try not to meet; okay. If we feel we are intruding on the children we will either go inside or outside but I am sure you will be sensitive to their needs and God has blessed us, we have got a lovely day so we are going to be fine.

PN118

We will just answer your questions and go with the flow of what you want to find out and talk about.

PN119

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Can I just ask, is this the only child-care centre in the network?

PN120

MS ROGERS: No, there are five long day care centres.

PN121

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Right.

PN122

MS ROGERS: And they are around the municipality.

PN123

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes.

PN124

MS ROGERS: So they are based in every area like Boronia and Bayswater and then the occasional child-care centre that caters for everybody that doesn't really fit into the long day care mould is based in Wantirna near Knox City. So it is sort of a little bit of a cross section.

PN125

MS BINGHAM: Elaine, could you give us a rundown on the centre itself?

PN126

MS ROGERS: On the centre itself; well, it is a 35 place centre, as Gerard has already said, that we cater for 74 families coming to this centre. That is the same across the whole of the network because there are more part time families within the service. So the days have gone where you would have 35 long day care places. We are open from 7 till 6 49 weeks of the year and what we do is we cater for Christmas care for families that work - who need to work over that three week period and we open our centre in Park Crescent in Boronia so that families have the opportunity to continue to work and attend child-care. So we don't close all the services, again meeting the needs of the community.

PN127

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Waiting list?

PN128

MS ROGERS: Waiting list is huge. I think it was 100 at the end of last year and has dropped down to 70. We also have the waiting list of parents who their work has changed and they may need to increase one or two days and they also have to wait. So down in Rowville the demand for child-care has always been high as long as I have been at the network, and that is 15 years.

PN129

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Could you tell us how many staff you have here and whether they are full time or not and what classification they are under the award?

PN130

MS ROGERS: Okay. We actually have a job share situation for the centre co-ordinators, so that is one EFT and then we would have three level 3s within the rooms and the job share co-ordinators are also level 3. You don't have any - you have no job share with your level 3s, only your level 2.

PN131

MS GOVER: No, they are all full time our level 3s.

PN132

MS ROGERS: So I could maybe give you how the rooms would be staffed and then give you a total of staff to show you that we do have job share and part time positions, and then we would have three level 1 or 2 within the room as well.

PN133

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Level 2.

PN134

MS ROGERS: Thank you. We have got one level 1, haven't we, or has she gone up to a level 2?

PN135

MS KNIGHT: Our level 1 are part time. We have two level 1 part time staff.

PN136

MS ROGERS: Give your name as well.

PN137

MS KNIGHT: Okay. Sorry, it is Lisa Knight. The room we are in at the moment we have 10 children with two staff, one full time at level 3; she has been with us for 15 months. We also have a job share position in this room. We have one level 2 who is part time. She has been with us for 15 years and a level 1 who is also part time. Obviously, as I said, they job share. They have both been with us for 15 years. Then we have a two to four age group. In that room we have 15 children. The staff in that room are Mary-Anne, who is a full-time level 3. In fact she works a nine day fortnight so she is at .95; Daniella, who is a full time level 2 and Sally, who is our part time level 1.

PN138

The reason we have Sally part time is because of the ratios. In a two to four age group, children over the age of three need one staff member to every 15. Children under the age of three you need one to every five, so Sally does additional hours when required, according to ratios. Then finally in our kinder age group, which is a four to five room, we have ten children with Belinda, who is a full time level 3.

PN139

MS ROGERS: Thank you, Lisa. So would you like to break into groups now.

PN140

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Yes.

PN141

MS ROGERS: Are there any more questions?

PN142

JUSTICE GIUDICE: Thank you very much. Yes, we will go off the record.

ADJOURNED INDEFINITELY [2.35pm]