A quarter of all Australian children under 12 are using childcare services, the latest Child Care Update report says MORE Australian families than ever are using childcare services, with nearly one million children in approved centres nationwide, a federal government report has found. The latest Child Care Update, released today, showed more than 700,000 families were accessing childcare services in 15,000 centres. An extra 22,400 children received child care in the year to June 2012, compared to the previous year, continuing a trend of strong growth. Around a quarter of all Australian children aged up to 12 years were now in child care, a record amount, the report found. "What we're seeing is more children accessing childcare in more services than ever before in our nation's history," Early Childhood and Child Care Minister Kate Ellis said in a statement. We're creating a more flexible, affordable, accessible childcare system with higher quality standards and families around Australia are rightly taking advantage. The federal government had spent a record $20.6 billion in direct childcare assistance, and increased the rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of out-of-pocket costs, she said. Couples with children needed the flexibility and confidence to know they could go back to work without worrying they'd be priced out of the system. But Ms Ellis said there were still problems around child care availability, with many parents unable to find a centre to take their kids. She said the government had done much work in this area, and she called on the states to step up their efforts particularly when it came to red tape around building new centres.