To read about the Regulatory Authority's processes and how decisions that directly affect services are made, visit Regulating for quality: assessing and rating the quality of early childhood services procedure.
For further details on the assessment and rating process, visit the
Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) website.
Scheduling of assessment and rating
The Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (Regulatory Authority) uses a
risk-based approach to scheduling assessment and ratings.
New services will receive a full assessment and rating approximately 9–18 months after they begin operating. The Regulatory Authority may also choose to reassess a service after it has been assessed and rated. This includes
'full' reassessments of all quality areas or
'partial' reassessments of a selection of quality areas or standards. A partial reassessment can only occur once a service has undergone a full assessment and rating under the 2018 National Quality Standard.
Notification
For a full assessment and rating, approved providers will generally receive 5 days’ notice that the process has commenced. For partial reassessments, the notice period is between 1–5 days, depending on the scope and whether a visit is required. The Regulatory Authority will phone first to notify, and then send a letter via email to the approved provider and the service confirming the visit date, scope, type of assessment, and the name of the authorised officer conducting the assessment and rating.
When a service is notified that an assessment and rating visit has been scheduled, it may be scheduled on a day when a key contact person at the service is not available. In most cases, the assessment and rating visit will proceed as planned, and the authorised officer will attempt to schedule a mutually convenient time to have a discussion with the key contact person after the visit. If the absence of the key contact person or other issues with the date of the visit will prevent the authorised officer from observing ‘typical practice’, then the assessment and rating visit may be postponed at the discretion of the authorised officer.
The Regulatory Authority may also commence an assessment and rating reassessment in response to compliance issues identified at the service. Where there have been compliance issues at the service and swift regulatory action is required, the assessment and rating may be unannounced or commenced with short notice.
Document request
For a centre-based service, the Regulatory Authority may request any of the following:
- a current staff roster
- a current staff scheduling, listing qualifications (including first aid, asthma management, anaphylaxis and working with children check)
- current routines for each session/room, including approximate times
- the service’s most recent QIP.
For a family day care service, the Regulatory Authority will request more information to determine which educators to visit.
The authorised officer uses the service information to effectively plan the rating assessment visit.
Issues during the visit
If the authorised officer identifies minor quality issues during the visit, they may offer the approved provider the opportunity to make minor adjustments to the service operation to address them. If so, the authorised officer will record that a 'minor adjustment' was offered in the report, and consider how the service responded to the offer for a minor adjustment before finalising the report.
If the authorised officer identifies a breach of the legislation that can be quickly and easily corrected, they may give the approved provider an offer to remedy a breach. If the breach it is not able to be quickly and easily corrected, they may issue a compliance action and/or reschedule or temporarily suspend the assessment and rating visit instead. Any offer to remedy a breach or compliance action taken will be recorded in the assessment and rating report.
Draft report and feedback
After preparing a draft assessment and rating report, the draft report is emailed to the approved provider to consider the proposed rating decision.
The authorised officer will arrange a discussion with the approved provider to clarify and answer any relevant questions. The approved provider may provide feedback on any factual inaccuracies and provide additional evidence for consideration before the final report is issued.
The approved provider has 10 working days to provide feedback.
If preparing feedback to the draft report, it is highly recommended that service providers read about how to
provide effective feedback.
If the approved provider does not submit feedback, the draft assessment and rating report will be reissued as the final report.
Final report
Prior to issuing the final assessment and rating report, the approved provider's feedback to the draft report (if any) is considered, along with any additional relevant evidence.
The authorised officer will acknowledge and incorporate the approved provider's feedback as part of the final report and determine if the feedback supports a change in the rating(s).
The Regulatory Authority will notify the approved provider of the final rating and provide the final report, accompanied by the Notice of Rating, within 60 days of the visit. The Notice of Rating must be displayed at the service.
The approved provider can apply to the Regulatory Authority for a
first tier review of a service's quality ratings within 14 calendar days of receiving the final assessment and rating report.
Help and support
If you have further questions about the assessment and rating process, please
contact your regional office.