The receiver for ABC Learning says 55 childcare centres will close nationally including 12 centres in Western Australia.
The receiver for ABC Learning says 55 childcare centres will close nationally including 12 centres in Western Australia.
ABC receiver Chris Honey, of McGrathNicol, today outlined a plan to provide a childcare place for every child using the company's services into 2009.
Under the plan, 720 centres will remain within the ABC Learning Group and 55 will close and be consolidated into nearby ABC centres.
Centres in Beeliar, Thornlie, Gosnells and Midland are among the WA centres to be closed.
Mr Honey said 80 per cent of staff from closing centres would be retained at nearby centres.
He said all children at the 55 centres to close would be offered places at ABC centres within 2.5km of existing ones.
A further 241 centres have been identified as unviable, including 21 in WA, under the current business model, but will trade into 2009 following the federal government's commitment today to provide $34 million to keep those centres open.
This is in addition to the $22 million of federal funding used to keep all the company's 1,040 childcare centres open to the end of the year.
"With the support of ABC Learning Group's banks and the federal government, we have devised a recovery plan to provide childcare places for every ABC family into 2009," Mr Honey said.
"Today we are in a much better position than we could ever have imagined just four weeks ago when we were first appointed as receivers and managers.
"We can now shift our focus to transitioning the new ABC Learning Group business out of receivership in 2009."
Mr Honey said he had sought to minimise the impact on families.
"We have undertaken a detailed review of the consolidating centres and identified capacity at neighbouring centres," he said.
"We will work closely with parents to ensure their child's new ABC centre is as close as possible to the previous location.
"I appreciate this solution is not perfect, as some children will need to move to other centres, however we have sought to minimise the impact on families and consider it is the best outcome in the circumstances."
He said it was possible that among the 241 centres that were not viable under the ABC's existing business model there were some that could be made profitable and taken out of receivership under an alternative model.
"These centres will continue to trade into 2009 under an arrangement to be announced by the government later today," he said.
"We are extremely appreciative of the ongoing support of the Australian government throughout this difficult process."
Mr Honey told reporters that from the 55 centres to close, 100 staff would lose their jobs, 400 would be redeployed on January 1 and 4,000 children would be relocated to other centres.
He said minimising the job losses had been "quite a feat, if you consider this was a corporate collapse, a business in a mess when we took over".
Mr Honey said in summary that of the 386 centres that were under review, 55 would close, 64 would remain open, 21 would be kept open by the Defence Department, 241 would be propped up by the federal government and five were not badged ABC centres.
