Cobar Shire Council is seeking to withdraw the Broken Hill Family Day Care (BHFDC) service from their Far West Family Day Care (FWFDC) operations.
Cobar Shire’s general manager Peter Vlatko said council absorbed BHFDC (which looks after approximately 130 children) as part of its Family Day Care operations across the region in 2020 “to help them out”.
“They were screaming out for services and nobody was doing it, it was just an extension of ours,” Mr Vlatko said.
He said Cobar Shire however now feels that it’s not in their best interests to be “providing a service to another town” and have been in discussions with Broken Hill Council about taking it over.
“We’re busy enough with what we’ve got and we thought that the Broken Hill Council will feel comfortable in looking after some of their families who live and work in their town,” he said.
Broken Hill Council is however not interested in taking on the service according to a Mirage News report saying they “lacked the resources, experience, and regulatory and compliance knowledge required for day care services”.
Mr Vlatko said he believed it would be in Broken Hill Council’s best interests for the city to take on BHFDC.
“Some of the people that use this service are doctors, police, nurses, etc that actually work in the town.
“If you take this away, what are they going to do?” he said.
Mr Vlatko said he plans to have further discussions with Broken Hill Council representatives tomorrow when they are in Cobar for the Western Division Conference.
“I’m going to sit down with them and try and understand why they’ve made that decision,” he said.
“There is a repercussion for them, I don’t understand why they didn’t consider it, but anyway it’s their business and I respect that.”
He said they will look at other options, including a private operator.
“At the end of the day we’ll help whoever takes it on as long as it’s still being run in accordance of how it should be run.
“But the reality of it is that we will have to look at the option of terminating that service,” Mr Vlatko said.
