Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 7:29:28 to 7:37:53
Senator Hodgins-May questions the department on compliance actions for services failing to meet National Quality Standards (NQS) for five or more years and the transparency of regulatory monitoring data.
Topics: Education, Child safety
Speakers: Mr. Brendan Moon, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, Senator Jess Walsh, Ms. Kylie Crane, Mr. Tony Cook
compliance action. >> Um, you alluded to this earlier, but what are the precise criteria the department used to identify the 120 services subjected to funding conditions?
>> Uh, thank you, Senator. Uh, those were some of our more straightforward ones. Uh so in in the context of those services uh they had not been meeting the national quality standard or that they were rated as below meeting NQS uh initially for seven or more years after multiple assessment and rating visits and assessments and ratings and they weren't they were assessed not meeting quality area too. The further tranches of the work then tightened in and went from five or more years. So um the whole cohort is five or more years raters below meeting NQF and not meeting criteria too.
>> Sorry, was it seven or more years or five or more years?
>> Uh, seven to begin with and then we broadened to the five or more.
>> Seven. Seven or more years. Were there any services that did meet those criteria but were not placed on conditions and can you provide the committee with the complete assessment methodology?
>> Uh, happy to take on notice. I don't have the full sample here. I don't believe so, but I'm happy to take on
notice. Uh, do you know whether little Zach was assessed at all?
again, we might take on notice. I don't know how much I'm able to disclose because of the secrecy provisions under the Family Assistance Act.
>> And can you also check about um was only about children were only about
>> We can look into what can be disclosed. I can certainly tell you the methodology. Um, I'm not sure. I'm sure I'm pretty confident I can't, but we can see what we can provide in terms of
if you are able to provide specifics about why um they did not meet the threshold if if they are in that assessment pool.
>> We'll take that not see help. Y
>> thank you. Um does the department have to hand how many child care services um that have failed to meet the national quality standard twice in a row and are still receiving Commonwealth childare subsidies?
>> I don't have it in the folder. um a SQA colleagues it is it's not commonwealth data I should say to start with it is state and territory data that a squa um manages on behalf of states and territories um there is some public data on this uh so I understand the aqua national registers uh would likely hold
>> so we we don't hold the data senator is what we're saying again we can take it on notice see we can access that data You were after services that didn't meet national quality standard two.
>> Yeah. Um twice in a row, but who are still re receiving the subsidy?
>> We'll have to work that through with sequence. Get that work through.
>> Thank you. Um my understanding is it's around 350 services that have failed to meet the standard in two consecutive assessments with an average gap of more than threeear assessments between um but you don't have you can't confirm that today with the information you've got in your folders.
>> No. So I can't confirm the number. What I can say to a couple of the other points that you've just made there certainly that period of time between assessments was um overall for national um uh the assessment rating was something that um education ministers discussed last year um and agreed to to time minister provisions around that um to some of the points you made around that there's large gaps uh between those assessments for some of those services. The second uh piece is that with the announcement of the extension of the worker retention payment QA2 and uh meeting that is a requirement in that for any of those services.
>> Was it QA2? Sorry.
>> So the Q the QA2 area that we're talking about um whilst what m Mr. Moon has just discussed has been about the conditions that have applied to a very specific group of services and about whether um they expand or other things. Um QA2 will also feature in the worker retention payment for the extension that's made. will be a requirement that those services that receive funding under the worker retention payment also meet it with that. So there are there will be two levers that the Commonwealth has um it means to ensure that services are meeting QA2.
Thank you. Um Minister, seven or five years sounds like an exceptionally long time for a center um to be failing to meet standards. You know, our kids have well and truly gone through in that time. If a service has failed the national quality standard twice in a row, um why isn't that automatically enough to trigger a Commonwealth funding review? Do you think that that's an appropriate timeline?
>> Uh I think I'll just get Mr. Moon to repeat the criteria because I think the criteria that you've just outlined >> did enliven the action.
>> It did. So it was um not meeting rated as below meeting national quality standard and not meeting quality area 2 after multiple assessments in five or
So five yeah five or more years. Do you
reasonable? So I mean what I what I can say um and Mr. Mr. can can help if if required. Is that um education ministers have said that um when a service is working towards um standards, it must be visited more often to make sure that it gets up to the standard. Uh there are 590 more services um that are meeting the standard um under the last data than there were a year ago. um meaning that they've moved from working towards to meeting the standards. So almost 600 more services have moved from working towards to meeting the standards. We think that's a a good thing where services are failing to to meet the standards. Um and you know Mr. means given that 5year um time frame um that is generally going to involve more than one visit probably a couple of visits that they've had um and um they haven't met the standard and I think Mr. Moon's evidence was that you know all of those services that met the criteria were um uh that the compliance action was taken
>> and Senator just If I may, just an important um I guess explanation or piece of context in terms of the different elements of regulation here or how how the safeguarding works. The assessment and rating part of the process is incredibly important. It gives families visibility as to um whether or not a service has met each of those quality areas and to what level. um it is an incredibly important part of the system, but so too is the ongoing monitoring and oversight that their state and territory regulators undertake. So it is not the case that a service is assessed and rated and then if they're not looked at again for a period of time. There is regular and frequent monitoring that goes
>> is there data around how often that regular and frequent is and how many >> uh there is senator >> even deidentified for centers what it
just to see. There's a couple of things so we can take on notice exactly what we can pull together. But to be helpful again, the Aqua National Registers do disclose the last visit by a regulator. >> Uh and that is then complemented again by the the further transparency in terms of regulatory action that's been posted um both on starting blocks for families and the national registers for broader visibility.
>> You can see the last check. Does it show each visit?
>> I believe it's the last visit, Senator.
Yeah, if there is any data to get an idea of when you say multiple visits over five years whether that's two or >> we can work with given the seriousness and okay thank you >> um I might move on sorry I was out of the room so if you have been asked these questions just let me know and I will keep moving um I've previously raised service closures and viability at previous estimates um since then edge as we've disced has confirmed 11 center closures and shared begin shared beginnings has entered