Financial Assistance for Parents Whose Infants are Enrolled in ECDA's Childminding Pilot Programme

6 Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) whether parents of infants enrolled in the Early Childhood Development Agency's Childminding Pilot are eligible for other forms of financial assistance beyond the use of Child Development Account funds; and (b) what further financial assistance schemes were available to the parents to defray the costs of enrolling in such services.

The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Mr Goh Pei Ming) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Besides the use of the Child Development Account (CDA) funds, the Government provides subsidies to ensure childminding services under the Early Childhood Development Agency's (ECDA's) Childminding Pilot for Infants are affordable. For parents who use these services full-time, for five days a week for four weeks, they will pay around $700 a month in out-of-pocket expenses. This is lower than the usual cost of childminding services today, which can be around $1,200 to $2,800 a month.

Of all families enrolled, more than 80% have used their infant's CDA monies to defray the out-of-pocket expenses of childminding services under this pilot.

Mr Speaker: Mr Muhaimin.

Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik (Sengkang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have three supplementary questions for the Minister of State.

The Minister of State mentioned that there is 80% of enrolled families that have used CDA monies to defray the cost. Can the Minister of State share what proportion of enrolled families come from lower-income households, those with per capita household income of $1,500 or below, and whether the absence of means-tested subsidies has been a barrier to participation for such families; and if so, what the Ministry intends to do about it?

Mr Goh Pei Ming: Speaker, I thank the Member for his question. Actually, I recognise the Member's concern for our lower-income families and that we are also acutely aware of this segment of society that we especially need to take good care of.

I wish to highlight and inform the Member that this childminding pilot is actually a pilot. We only offer it at two centres currently and taking care of no more than 100 infants at this current juncture. The objective of the pilot really is for us to explore how to do this well and to scale this across the country, including how to make it even more inclusive for all children, for all income types as well as to understand, also, what operators need to do to keep this a viable model.

Therefore, currently, we only provide a supply-side subsidies to the operators as well as on the CDA monies.

We recognise that for lower-income families, if they really need the infant care or childminding support, we do recommend them to go for our many, many infant care preschools. Our low-income families when they enrol in our Government-supported preschools, they will, as the Member is aware of, receive a lot more subsidy options, including means-tested subsidies. With fee caps in our Government preschools, after preschool subsidies, our lower-income families can actually pay as low as $40 for full-day infant care in Anchor Operator preschools.

Mr Speaker: That is $40 a month, a month, right?

Mr Goh Pei Ming: Yes, Speaker. Thank you very much. It is $40 a month.

10.31 am

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question Time. The Clerk will now proceed to read the Order of the Day.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]