Submission to the Australian National Audit Office

Audit of Closing the Gap in Early Childhood Development and Schooling

SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children (SNAICC) welcomes the opportunity to provide input into the Australian National Audit Office audit of Closing the Gap in early childhood development and schooling.

This submission reflects SNAICC’s work with the Department of Education (DE), the Department of Social Services (DSS)1, and the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) across a range of early years policy, funding and partnership mechanisms. It draws on the commitments made under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap and its Priority Reforms to assess policy, funding, and reporting, which align closely with the audit scope.

There are strong examples of promising work underway, including:

• Collaborative partnerships, such as the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy Partnership, which have supported shared decision-making and driven policy reform;
• Investments in initiatives such as Connected Beginnings and Early Years Support, which are improving culturally safe service delivery; and
• Progress on funding reform, including development of a new ACCO funding model for integrated early years services.

However, there are also areas where further effort is required to fully implement the National Agreement. In particular:

• Sector strengthening is not consistently prioritised, limiting the ability and growth of ACCOs to meet demand for high-quality, culturally responsive services;
• Short-term funding undermines stability for peak bodies and service providers, and does not reflect the scale of investment needed to meet developmental and school readiness outcomes;
• Partnerships are too often limited to discrete projects and dependent on individual staff, rather than being embedded in structures and supported through institutional reform;
• Structural transformation under Priority Reform Three remains limited, with cultural capability not yet matched by whole-of-government accountability frameworks; and
• Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles are not consistently embedded, and there is limited investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led data development to measure child development and learning in ways that reflect community priorities.