April 29th, 2025
Latest News
Members would be aware that the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has deliberated the Gender Undervaluation case since July 2024.
On 16 April 2025 at 10 am, the FWC released its (provisional view in its) full decision and decision summary.
In short, the FWC stated:
"For CSEs [Children Services Employees] under the CS [Children Services'] Award, a new and simplified classification structure is proposed based on an alignment with the Caring Skills benchmark rate ($1269.80 per week) for a Certificate III-qualified employee. This is proposed to be phased in over a period of five years, with a first instalment consisting of a 5 per cent increase to be operative from 1 August 2025."
An extract of the full decision provides further detail of the implementation of their decision, including:
a range of increases across all Children's Services Award classification levels of between 9.4% to 27.8%; and
a restructuring of the Children's Services Award classification levels (eg to now be 8 levels).
In advance of the Federal Election (on 3 May 2025), it is expected that the Federal Government and the Federal Opposition will publicly respond to the FWC's decision, particularly how such increases will be funded beyond FY2025/2026 such that fee increases on parents and families are avoided.
ACA has issued its media release response and ACA NSW members will also receive a more comprehensive anaylsis of this decision from the FWC as soon as possible. And discussion of this is anticipated at the upcoming ACA NSW events:
Inner Circle on Monday, 28 April 2025 from 6.30 pm at Club Parramatta (NOTE: Less than 10 tickets left); and
Members-Only Meeting on Monday, 5 May 2025, from 10 am via webinar.
For any further information/clarification, members can contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.
PUBLISHED: 16 APRIL 2025
