The government has produced figures compiled by the Community Services Directorate showing places will grow by about 200 this year, while fees will rise by less than CPI.

But long waiting lists look set to continue to thwart Canberra parents hoping to juggle children and work, and a childcare industry group says it is too early to gauge the impact on fees.

Community Services bureaucrats contacted 108 services providing long-day care in the ACT to determine whether there was any reduction of childcare places or hikes in fees as a result of the 2012 National Quality Framework.

Minister for Community Services Joy Burch said the number of places for children under two years old would rise slightly from 1909 in 2011 to 1938 this year. Meanwhile, places for children over two were set to increase from 4837 last year to 5003.

Ms Burch said the average fee per day charged among the centres in the survey would rise by slightly less than $3, from $83.22 to $85.17.

She also said her department had funded another 173 places, due to become available between this financial year and the next, by allocating $9.2 million for expansion work to nine centres.

''These figures confirm that the ACT childcare sector has transitioned well to the new regulations, and that the extensive work and investment the ACT government has done with the sector over the past 18 months to prepare for these reforms has paid off,'' Ms Burch said.

At Campbell Cottage, run by YWCA of Canberra, manager Erin Cooper said the centre had taken the changes to national standards in its stride. ''We were meeting the standards in our nursery for probably the past three years,'' Ms Cooper said.

''We were lucky because the YWCA has always pushed for increased ratios, particularly with our under-twos and we still have a one [worker] to three [children ratio] at the moment.

''We only had to employ one additional worker this year to ensure that our toddler room came into line with the new standards.

''Our fees have gone up by $2 a day and that was to cover the extra staff member that we put on. But I could imagine that other centres … might have to raise their fees a little, but it shouldn't be too much.''

Despite a net increase of 15 places this year, Campbell Cottage will still grapple with a waiting list of more than 200 names. ''I think you'll find that most centres on the northside of Canberra have very long waiting lists,'' Ms Cooper said.

Gwynn Bridge, of the Australian Childcare Alliance, the lobby group for commercial childcare providers, said the figures were encouraging but it would be several months before the full impact of the changes could be accurately gauged.

''It is encouraging if families are not being disadvantaged by services reducing their baby places in the ACT,'' Ms Bridge said yesterday.

''It is noted that [Ms Burch] states that this is an overall count of places and it would be interesting to determine whether smaller services have been unable to provide the extra staff member to maintain the additional children.

''Many services do adjust their fees at the end of the financial year and this will probably provide a more accurate figure as to [National Quality Standards] fee increases.''