Recently ACECQA published its latest NQF Annual Performance Report. It continues to show concerning trends in relation to compliance with the National Law (pages 16-27):
Rate of reported serious incidents per 100 services has steadily increased from 99 in 2016-17 to 148 in 2023-4. According to the report "It is important to note that most reported serious incidents result in no formal compliance action being required by state and territory regulatory authorities.
It is also very challenging to make robust comparisons of the rate of reported serious incidents across service types or financial years for a number of reasons. In common with other sectors, dealing with both the likely ‘over’ and ‘under’ reporting of serious incidents from different parts of the sector is particularly
difficult." (page 19). The figures could also indicate that compliance with health and safety of children standards has not been a priority of services and/or the main focus of some regulatory authorities. Although it should be noted, the Report states that: "As part of the quarterly NQF Snapshot, ACECQA publishes the total number of quality assessment and rating visits compared to all other visits undertaken by state and territory regulatory authorities. Other types of visits include checking and monitoring compliance with the requirements of the NQF, investigating complaints and responding to events such as serious incidents and confirmed breaches, as well as visits for educative purposes.
While the ratio of assessment and rating visits to all other visits has fluctuated over time, state and territory regulatory authorities have undertaken more than three times as many other types of visits than assessment and rating visits, emphasising the significant amount of regulatory work that occurs outside of quality assessment and rating." (page 27). Therefore, I would argue that it is even more important to report on the outcomes of those (compliance) visits, as is the case with assessment and rating visits.
The proportion of services reporting one or more serious incidents has steadily increased from 43% in 2016-17 to 56% in 2023-4.
Services with higher quality ratings are consistently more likely to report serious
incidents than those with lower quality ratings. In 2023/24, services rated Exceeding NQS continue to have the highest rate of reported serious incidents – 155 per 100 approved services. This suggests, to me, that there is significant under reporting by services meeting NQS (152) and Working towards NQS (142).
Rate of confirmed breaches per 100 services has steadily increased from 98 in 2016-17 to 201 in 2023-4. "A ‘confirmed breach’ occurs when a state or territory regulatory authority finds that relevant legislation, regulations or conditions at a children’s education and care service have not been adhered to, with the
situation then being required to be rectified." (page 23). The Report notes that "[n[ot all confirmed breaches represent a risk to children’s health and safety, and the degree of risk varies according to the individual circumstances of the breach. For example, a breach may relate to a failure to display prescribed information at the service premises. It is also important to note that multiple confirmed
breaches can be the result of a single event and the same service can be the subject of several confirmed breaches." (page 23). This is why I believe it is important that there be more comprehensive reporting on compliance activity and enforcement action.
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