The department’s Compliance Team 2 (CT2) consists of 9 authorised officers and a hub coordinator, all of whom are passionate about children’s health, safety and wellbeing. Each member of the team is committed to working with early childhood education and care (ECEC) services to help them improve and maintain compliance with the National Law and Regulations.

Like other authorised officers who work within the NSW Regulatory Authority for the ECEC sector, members of CT2 conduct monitoring and compliance, as well as assessment and rating visits. However, their primary focus is engaging with services where compliance has been challenging for the provider and service to sustain. A critical part of this work is forming an effective professional relationship with the provider to effect education of services and their staff on best practice relating to policies and procedures, as well as increasing their knowledge of requirements under the National Law and Regulations. Sustained behavioural change related to compliance with the National Law and Regulations is the primary objective.

Supporting services to improve compliance and quality

When non-compliance is identified, either through self-reporting or by an authorised officer during a service visit, CT2 will work with that service to provide clarity of the non-compliance and information to enable the service to remedy as soon as possible.

This may include providing general information and education to ensure services understand the regulatory requirements and/or providing specific guidance on actions they need to take to rectify the matter. For example, after evaluating the non-compliance and any relevant factors – such as the unique context of the service and the needs of children and families – an authorised officer may issue a compliance action to the service leaders that supports them to clearly understand the issues and how they can be resolved. The compliance action provides formal direction on processes and procedures service leaders should review and amend to meet compliance and ensure a high-quality and safe early learning environment.

Authorised officers encourage services to view instances or areas of non-compliance as opportunities on their continuous improvement journey. The team is there to support them along the way and welcome questions or requests for feedback from services during and after visits.

Maintaining a positive relationship with services is paramount for the authorised officers. “We understand that when collaborative, respectful relationships are maintained between service leaders and the NSW Regulatory Authority, outcomes for children are greatly improved,” the team reflected.

The key role of service leaders

As role models for their staff, service leaders play a pivotal role in upholding and improving compliance and quality practice, explained CT2. As a result, the team values clear and transparent communication with service leaders. This helps ensure service leaders understand any concerns raised by the authorised officers and can promptly implement corrective actions.

While CT2 members have a strong knowledge of the National Law and Regulations, each of the authorised officers have also previously worked in a service setting, which they draw on when engaging with service leaders and their staff.

“We rely on our experience working within the sector to better understand the unique challenges and difficulties service’s encounter,” the team explained. “This enables us to provide support, direction and guidance that aids compliance and ultimately results in better outcomes for services and, most importantly, children.”

“Like educators and service leaders, we keep the children in education and care services at the centre of everything that we do,” they added. “We believe that when children have a safe environment to engage in, quality learning and development can occur.”