A childcare operator is urgently checking its records amid fears that an accused child sex offender may have been employed longer than previously thought.

Joshua Dale Brown has been charged with more than 70 sex offences after allegedly abusing eight children aged under two at a Point Cook centre in Melbourne’s south-west.

Victoria Police are also examining evidence of alleged offending at a centre in Essendon.

A list of the 20 centres Brown worked at since 2017, with date ranges, has already been made public.

The parents of 1200 children have been told to get them tested for sexually transmitted infections as a precaution.

Affinity Education, which operates several centres where Brown worked, including at Essendon, is reviewing its records following reports he might have been employed longer than first thought.

“Given the serious nature of the matter, we are currently reviewing our records in detail to ensure completeness,” a spokesperson said.

“Affinity Education continues to co-operate fully with authorities and remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of the children and families in our care.”

Meanwhile, a former royal commissioner has slammed governments for dragging their feet on creating a national scheme for working-with-children checks.

Brown, 26, had a valid working-with-children check and was not known to police or subject to any complaints before his arrest in May.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse called on the federal government in 2015 to “facilitate a national model” for working with children checks.

Robert Fitzgerald, one of five members of the royal commission, said the recommendation remained unfulfilled.

“My view is that is shameful,” the now-age discrimination commissioner said.

“Ten years on, that job should have been completed and the fact that it isn’t means there are gaps in our child safeguarding regime.”

Every state and territory has its own working-with-children scheme, with different rules and requirements.

Victoria, Queensland and NSW have all committed to reviewing or tightening their regimes.

A 2022 Victorian ombudsman report exposed “serious flaws” in the state’s scheme after former Melbourne City Mission worker Alexander Jones was convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 2018.

Jones was investigated for multiple alleged sexual offences in NSW but granted a permit in Victoria because his national police check was clean, as he had not been charged.

People under investigation for serious offences can still hold a working-with-children check in Victoria. It can be revoked only upon criminal charges or a regulatory finding.

Plans to strengthen the checks will be discussed at a meeting of state and federal attorneys-general in August.

The federal government is also preparing to fast-track legislation in parliament this month to cut funding to centres with safety breaches.

Federal frontbencher Clare O’Neil said she had no good answer for why the royal commission’s recommendations were left on the shelf.

“A lot of these predators would pass a working-with-children check,” she said.

Families of the children recommended for STI testing are anxiously awaiting results.

It’s understood that at least two families were told to get their infants checked twice. They were first told to get their child checked for two diseases and then days later were warned about a third.

Victoria’s health department has expressed regret for causing any additional stress or anxiety.

The allegations against Brown have cast a spotlight on educator-to-child ratios, which do not require more than one carer to be around a child at any given time, unlike the Netherlands’ “four eyes” principle.

A father whose two children attended the Point Cook centre wants CCTV installed throughout the facility.

NSW has flagged a trial of CCTV cameras in centres, as an urgent Victorian review examines making the technology mandatory.

1800 RESPECT 1800 737 732

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028