May 2nd, 2024
Latest News
The NSW Department of Education is continuing to insist that the majority of NSW-based services are in favour of the change to 5 (business) days' notification of the next Assessment & Rating as proposed by ACECQA.
ACA NSW is grossly disappointed in the NSW Regulatory Authority’s decision announced yesterday on 27 June 2023. This is despite 77.9% of surveyed respondents being against this proposed change (where the existing notification period is up to 8+ weeks notification of an impending Assessment & Rating).
The NSW Regulatory Authority’s primary argument to support their implementation of this change is that services should always be at their best regardless of their available personnel.
ACA NSW agrees with this in-principle. But such an objective must always be tempered in practice, especially when faced with the continuing and worsening labour shortages.
The other often used argument is to stop services from replacing their staff with the "A-team" for the purposes of the assessment and rating process. However, the NSW Department of Education has assured ACA NSW that NSW Authorised Officers are legally not obliged to complete the services' assessment and rating should they believe it is an unauthentic representation of quality. In other words, the "A-team" and their practical benefits are a myth.
Obviously, with 5 days’ notice of an impending Assessment & Rating, the affected service’s Approved Provider, Nominated Supervisor and Educational Leader (as well as other educators and teachers) may not always be available to be present at their A&R due to planned leave.
It must be recognised that the National Law and National Regulations place legal responsibilities as well as the risk of financial penalties on Approved Providers and the Nominated Supervisors. Educational Leaders are also specifically responsible for at least Quality Areas 1 and 7. Therefore, there is not only an ethical obligation to ensure that these individuals must always be present during A&Rs for the service(s) they are responsible for, there is also the need for procedural fairness that A&Rs can only be properly completed with them present.
Thankfully, the NSW Department of Education has confirmed receipt of ACA NSW's formal request for developing a publicly transparent protocol such that deferral is predictably granted should the Approved Provider, Nominated Supervisor and/or the Educational Leader will be reasonably unavailable during the proposed assessment & rating.
The NSW Regulatory Authority also announced that they intend to conduct Partial A&Rs for existing services on at least 2 and up to 4 Quality Areas (ie not all 7 Quality Areas) with one Quality Area to be chosen by the service. That said, the QIP or the NSW Self-Assessment Working Document submitted for consideration must continue to cover all 7 Quality Areas. This is such that Authorised Officers can then conduct more A&Rs of NSW-based services while all services must maintain the same workload but arguably with greater regularity in anticipation of A&Rs that can happen in say 5 days’ time.
Despite the Quality Ratings requirements on all services since 1 January 2012, the NSW Department of Education’s and the Federal Minister for Education’s articulated public concerns in late 2022 that 40%-45% of preschool children are not developmentally ready upon starting school. And in December 2022, the NSW Productivity Commission was concerned that NSW’s “costs of stricter regulatory requirements likely exceed the benefits.”
ACA NSW will continue to advocate for improvements to NSW’s A&R process. Otherwise, the Quality Rating system will not be universally recognised or embraced by all parents, and support from services will continue to decline and instead resist striving beyond Meeting the National Quality Standards.
UPDATED: 10 JULY 2023
FIRST PUBLISHED: 28 JUNE 2023
