Childcare sector growth outpaces checks

Quality assessments of childcare providers have a long way to go, while the sector continues to expand.

The latest national quality framework snapshot shows the number of childcare services grew nine per cent in the past year.

In particular, the number of family daycare centres grew by 50 per cent.

However, quality assessors are scrambling to keep up. Just two in five child care services across the country have been rated so far.

The full early-childhood national quality framework, including ratings for every childcare service, is supposed to be in place by the start of 2016, meaning there are only 18 months left to finish the job.

Ratings began in mid-2012.

More than 8600 services do not have a quality rating.

A spokeswoman for the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority told AAP all agencies were working as hard as they could to do the assessments.

The proportion of centres with ratings has doubled in the past year and early-childhood ministers agreed to streamline the ratings process from July 1 to speed things up.