The unregulated daycare ‘cash cow’ where accused paedophile allegedly preyed on children

Staff as young as 15 are caring for up to 15 children in the Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) sector as industry heads raise the alarm about for-profit providers putting money over children’s wellbeing and call for nationally consistent regulation in the sector.

Accused child abuser 26-year-old David James, hired through recruitment agency Randstad, worked at 58 different OSHC operators, allegedly abusing children at six centres across Sydney.

Parents drop children off at Lane Cove West Public School, where Sydney childcare worker David James allegedly filmed abuse of children while working at the Helping Hands outside school hours care centre. Credit: Sam Mooy

He has been charged with 13 offences, including nine counts of aggravated use of a child to make child abuse material, one count of using a child to make abuse material, two counts of possessing abuse material and one count of refusing officers access to his phone.

The six centres involved are Pyrmont OSHC – City of Sydney; OSHClub – Barker College; Willoughby Kids House; Helping Hands – St Ives Park Public School; St Ives OSHC Centre – Kidzone; and Helping Hands – Lane Cove West. The AFP on Thursday published a list of 58 centres where James worked, including the six where the alleged abuse took place. (The list of 58 centres is at the bottom of the story.)

While James held a Working With Children’s check, he wasn’t required to hold any childcare-related qualifications. NSW is the only jurisdiction that has no qualification requirements for working with children over preschool age.

Nearly 600,000 children attend OSHC nationally. The sector is growing, with an additional 426 services added in the past year, nationally topping 5000 services.

Concerns over for-profit providers

Like the broader Early Childhood Education and Care sector, OSCH has become increasingly privatised.

Five providers – Junior Adventures Group, TeamKids, Camp Australia, TheirCare and the YMCA – together account for more than 30 per cent of the national market, according to the Outside School Hours Council of Australia.

Of the 58 locations where James was employed, 20 were owned by for-profit providers Junior Adventure Group, which runs Helping Hands, OSHCare and OSHClub, with another three owned by Camp Australia.

Across the broader early childcare sector, 54 per cent of providers are private for-profit.

National Outside School Hours Services Alliance chairperson Kylie Brannelly said the organisation had concerns about the for-profit direction OSCH services were going.

“We have had concerns, in a similar way to the long daycare sector, about providers operating outside-school-hours care with a focus on profit-driven behaviour,” she said.

For-profit providers were more likely to work with minimum ratios of staff, she said, while quality providers would add extra carers. Some schools, she added, saw OSHC as a “cash cow” to supplement their budgets, charging providers rents that were “far, far higher” than they should be for the facilities.

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“All of that behaviour reduces the amount of revenue that can be directed back into the service. Revenue, first and foremost, for outside school hours care, should go to driving high-quality care for the children and families,” she said.

Unqualified, young and casual workforce

Of the 30,500 OSHC workers around the country, more than half of workers had no qualifications in a relevant field and less than a quarter were studying towards any kind of qualification, Department of Education data shows.

More than a third of workers are aged between 20 and 24, while 13 per cent of workers were aged 15 to 19. Most had less than three years’ experience in the sector. Two-thirds of workers were employed casually, and the majority worked less than 19 hours a week.

While services must meet Australian Skills Quality Authority standards, qualification requirements and staffing ratios of OSHC differ between jurisdictions.

Community Child Care Association chief executive Daniela Kavoukas said the sector needed a nationally consistent approach.

“Mandated training is critically important for high-quality care and child safety,” she said.

She called for national qualifications to be brought in line with Queensland, which requires staff to hold a Certificate III in OSHC.

‘Widespread community concern’

NSW Premier Chris Minns defended the role of for-profit care providers in public schools at a press conference on Friday morning.

“The premise of the question is that for-profit providers offer an unsafe service, and I think that it’s important to note that given the scale of out-of-school care, as well as before-school care, as well as preschool, it’s not possible for the state to bridge that gap by itself, so we rely on private providers,” he said.

“I want to make it clear that we recognise that it needs to be zero tolerance when it comes to strict, enforceable Working With Children checks. It’s one of the reasons why we’ll be introducing legislation to stop what we perceive to be a loophole that allows someone to access a Working With Children check after it has been denied.”

He said the government was implementing changes recommended by the Wheeler report into Working With Children checks, and that he recognised the “widespread community concern”.

OSHC, like daycare centres, are regulated by the Department of Education, which can cancel providers’ approvals. Just 132 operators have been subject to enforcement action since 2018, only one of which was an OSHC.

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (and see lifeline.org.au), 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), the National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service on 1800 211 028 or Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800.

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