The Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW continues to be disappointed with proven breaches at and non-compliances by early childhood education and care service providers, especially whenever children are at risk. That said, ACA NSW has also continued to demand for a transparent and fair process for service providers over their alleged breaches and non-compliances. And while the NSW Department of Education agrees, such a transparent and fair process remains to be delivered.
The then-new NSW Minister for Early Childhood Education, the Hon Sarah Mitchell MLC, was first approached in March 2018 regarding such concerns. More recently in November 2019, Minister Mitchell was again asked and the NSW Department of Education responded acknowledging that services are unable to view their own alleged breaches of the National Law and National Regulations and other non-compliance issues.
That said, the NSW Department of Education agreed to request the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) to seek possible enhancements to their NQA ITS system to ensure that services and approved providers are able to view their own alleged breaches and other non-compliances.
Without this transparency and fair process, ACA NSW continues to be concerned with the potential of any/all of the following:
- NSW Department of Education's Authorised Officer(s) making allegations against services without any supporting or adequate documentation/evidence/proof;
- services may not be able to contest or challenge the allegations using due process (including through the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT));
- services may not know if their alleged breaches/non-compliances remain active (at the expense of the service) or if it/they have been adequately dealt with, or even if it/they have been withdrawn due to a lack of supporting or adequate documentation/evidence/proof; and
- NSW Department of Education may not be able to identify Authorised Officer(s) who have confirmed trends of making allegations without any supporting or adequate documentation/evidence/proof.
Presently, serious breaches and non-compliances are already publicly available via the NSW Department of Education's Published Enforcement and Decision Actions. However, this list is vastly smaller compared to what the media (ie the Daily Telegraph and 7News) were referring to in the Federal Government's Report on Government Services 2020 (Early Childhood Education and Care), in particular its Table 3A.34.
Courtesy of 7News (27 June 2020)
ACA NSW will continue to urge the NSW Department of Education for the promised transparent and fair process over all alleged breaches and non-compliances.
PUBLISHED: 29 JUNE 2020