New figures provided by the federal government reveal that childcare places in accredited family homes have fallen under Labor in what the opposition claims is an ideological push towards formalised care.

In March 2006, the number of children in family daycare, which was heavily promoted by the Howard government in its later years, hit a high of 109,950.

But the latest figures from March last year show there were 103,630 children in family daycare. At the same time, the overall number of children in childcare had risen from 785,920 to 879,050.

Family daycare is a home-based childcare alternative that is often preferred by parents because it is cheaper, offers more flexible hours and generally has a more personal approach.

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In last year’s federal budget, the Labor government announced it would cut the one-off payment currently given to those people, usually mothers, who want to start family daycare in their homes. A new national ratio of one carer to seven children, with no more than four under school age, will come into force in January 2014.

Family Day Care Australia spokeswoman Lynne Moran said the decline in home-based childcare numbers demonstrated the boom in institutionalised childcare, despite the collapse of the nation’s largest childcare provider, ABC Learning, in 2008.

“Much of this can be attributed to the significant growth, and in some cases, commercialisation of the long daycare sector over the past 10 years,” Ms Moran said.

“The high profile of some of the long daycare providers has meant many parents have been less aware of the diversity of care options available for their children.”

Childcare Minister Kate Ellis defended the decline in family daycare places, saying parents had the right to choose where their children went for care.

“Parents take into account a range of factors when making the important decision about placing their children in care,” Ms Ellis said. “This includes considerations like an individual child’s developmental needs, the availability of various types of care in their area, and the cost and quality of the care provided.

“Over the past few years there has been a modest decline in the number of children in family daycare, which has been accompanied by strong growth in the number of children attending long daycare centres.”

She attributed the decline to the government’s decision to remove the cap on long daycare places, which enabled the childcare sector “to grow and meet increasing demand”.

“We are supporting parents so they can choose the childcare arrangements that work best for their family,” the minister said.

The opposition blames the decline in family daycare places on the introduction of higher quality standards on all childcare places.

The Coalition’s childcare spokeswoman, Sussan Ley, said the new national quality framework took a “sledgehammer” to family daycare by enforcing a ratio of one carer to four preschool-age children.

“As any home carer will tell you, it is the fifth child who begins to make the role cost-effective,” Ms Ley said. “Before this you are struggling to even meet the overheads. But where Minister Ellis has really botched the changes is in requiring a family day carer to also pick up a Certificate in Early Childhood Education. She simply doesn’t understand the character of the industry. The future drop in available homecare numbers is potentially enormous, and we can ill-afford to lose these mums, especially when there are not enough to start with.”

Family daycare has been a good source of income for mother of two Megan Tordoff, but that will change under the new child-carer ratios mandated by the NSW government.

With two children of her own — Oliver, 4 and Tilda, 2 — Ms Tordoff runs a small childcare group in her Surry Hills home in Sydney’s inner city, but she said when her third child is born in July, there will be no point in taking care of extra children.

“It’s not really worth it if I can only care for one more child — it doesn’t make you enough money,” she said. “I think it’s going to be tough for a lot of family day carers out there.”

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