When you purchase an existing centre, a range of specific notifications must be made to various departments to ensure legislative documentation requirements are met. 

Prior to the transfer of the business, you need to be an Approved Provider (AP) or have nominated someone. For more information about Approved Providers, refer to my earlier article called “Role of the Approved Provider”

You and other Directors of your childcare company need to have a positive Blue Card (or Working with Children Check) to operate a child-related business, and to achieve Service Approval. You are required to provide the Department of Education with a suite of documents that demonstrate you are prepared and ready to operate in a compliant manner from the first day of your ownership. 

You will also need to consider:

• If you wish to rebrand the centre.

• Conditions of employment for current staff, and to ensure they are appropriately and suitably experienced and qualified to fulfill their roles. 

• If you are not actively involved on a daily basis, your Nominated Supervisor will need to manage all aspects of operations, plan, create update and implement compliant policies and procedures, ensure children’s safety, demonstrate leadership and advocacy of an early education and care service on your behalf.

• If government department paperwork is complete.

• Setting up accounts for the business. 

You also need to check if the centre needs anything – i.e. An injection of new toys and equipment, an update of outdoor play areas, gardens, painting of the building, fences, etc. Some tasks will be medium or long term but planning for them will reassure the staff team that you intend to take care of the business. It will also reassure families that you care about the centre. 

If rebranding, you will need to arrange uniforms, badges, signage on the building, buses, letterheads, web site, social media sites, etc. 

You will not only decide about changes, but you will need to consider how to manage those changes to gain maximum impact and minimum disruption to the centre. Being thoughtful in how you handle the change over will speak volumes to your families and staff about you as Approved Provider. A positive perception of you is worth gold.

It is not advisable to make the wholesale change immediately. It is better to only do what must be done, then bring about other changes gradually. Children find change difficult to manage and will show this in their behaviour, which in turn makes their parents anxious. Staff will also be struggling with concerns about the change. Remember they don’t know what kind of employer you will be, so my advice is to allow time to settle in before changing too much. 

A flexible Approved Provider usually achieves better long-term success than one who is rigid and determined to have everything their own way. This is particularly true if the new AP is not experienced in the sector, as many of their ideas can be well-intentioned without them realizing, they can be creating more problems further down the track. 

This article does not cover all aspects of take-over, as there are too many to list here, but suffice to say, a smooth childcare centre takeover is not automatic, it must be carefully planned and implemented for the best business outcomes. A good consultant who is familiar with all the requirements will be helpful during this process.

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