Ombudsman, Ministry Of Education Not Bothered About Getting Their Sums Wrong

The government is not delivering the basics brilliantly through a Ministry of Education Pay Parity calculator that’s setting Early Childhood Education centres up to fail, and the Ombudsman is comfortable with them doing it.

The Ministry’s Pay Parity calculator can’t deliver accurate data, because it rounds up service into years, when the policy says they must be measured in hours.

By law, centres must measure teachers’ length of service accurately to determine which Pay Parity step they should be paid at. Failure to get this right risks breaching statutory funding conditions, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars in penalties, or personal grievances for not following policy properly.

“It’s inexplicable that misinformed, inaccurate information is being put out there by a government department and no-one seems bothered. Complaints to the Minister and Ombudsman have failed. The ECE Regulatory Review cannot come soon enough,” said Simon Laube, Early Childhood Council CEO.

The ECC designed a Pay Parity calculator in 2022 that’s currently used by over a thousand ECE services. However, in December 2023, the Ministry released its own calculator in an apparent effort to compete.

The ECC’s December 2023 complaint to Minister Stanford about the flawed calculator was referred back to the Ministry of Education, who refused to take action. ECC then urgently complained to the Ombudsman – who after a nine month investigation has ruled it reasonable for the Ministry to keep offering the flawed calculator, despite the risks for operators who use it.

“ECC members using our calculator are safe, but we’re really worried about centres choosing the Ministry’s calculator, because it simply can’t deliver accurate Pay Parity assessments.

“The Ombudsman says the Ministry’s calculators’ fine print will help centres work out it doesn’t work properly. Why should centres, already bogged down in regulation mahi, have to mark the Ministry’s work?”

“If the Ministry was really trying to be helpful, they’d fix the calculator or turn it off. We’ll now be referring the matter to the Ministry for Regulation for the ECE sector review,” said Simon Laube.

Background

In 2022 the Ministry of Education commenced the first of three confusing Pay Parity policies.

Presented as optional, the names of service providers who didn’t opt-in were published, encouraging teachers to resign and leave.

Over the last three years, two further Pay Parity policies were added, creating massive administrative burden and majorily confusing funding processes for operators. The ECC supported its members with training, tools, guides and a calculator to help them ensure that, if they did opt-in, their business could survive.

The major problem with the Pay Parity policies is the clear funding gap, which means some operators using the scheme are required to pay higher teacher salary costs by increasing parent fees.

Providers don’t want to have to do this, and it’s contributing to the cost of living crisis that all families face - unfortunately, for those families feeling the harshest effects of the cost of living crisis, these childcare fee increases can make ECE completely unaffordable for their tamariki. This is a generation where those on low incomes will not be able to afford ECE for their children, leading to worsening educational outcomes for those who stood to benefit most from ECE participation.

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