ASQA Update - April 2022

Welcome to the April edition of the ASQA Update

Last month saw many providers in Queensland and New South Wales impacted by the catastrophic flooding along the east coast. ASQA recognises that providers and students continue to be impacted by these events, and is engaging directly with providers and sector leaders to understand the evolving risks – particularly where on-site training facilities remain inaccessible to staff and students, and access to businesses in the local community for the purposes of work placements remains restricted. As a result, we have deferred the due date for the 2022 Annual Declaration on Compliance to 29 April for providers with a head office in New South Wales or Queensland. I encourage providers impacted by the floods to contact ASQA to discuss their specific circumstances where they may be having difficulty meeting requirements. Guidance is also available on our website to support providers to manage risks to quality VET at this time.

This month marks one year since we introduced a number of fundamental reforms to our regulatory practices and organisational governance and structure – and saw us make fundamental shifts in our regulatory approach and redefine our strategic purpose to provide greater clarity of our purpose and role as a best-practice regulator. We are continuing to embed the changes we have made and delivering on our forward plan of action as outlined in our Corporate Plan 2021-22. This includes greater use of sector education, strengthened engagement, and increased transparency of our regulatory risk priorities to support a focus on self-assurance and excellence in training outcomes.

In this edition, we provide an update on implementation of full cost recovery from 1 July 2022. We acknowledge the ongoing engagement from stakeholders, which is vital to ensuring our regulatory approach is evidence based, reflects best practice, enables continuous improvement, delivers more efficient, effective, transparent and accountable regulation. The Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS) for 2022-23 published on our website, reflects improvements to our Regulatory Operating Model over the last 18 months and will support our ongoing commitment to minimise costs to providers while improving quality VET outcomes.

The sector continues to play an integral role in the co-design of the self-assurance model as a tool that will enable providers to drive and demonstrate continuous improvement to their systems, processes, and performance against the standards. This edition includes an update on this important work.

Last month also saw the Australian Government announce ASQA as the independent body to be responsible for training package assurance from 1 January 2023. This independent assurance function will see ASQA assessing training products submitted by Industry Clusters for compliance against standards and policies set by Skills Ministers. Under the new function, we will also support the capacity of the Industry Clusters by providing guidance and feedback on common and emerging issues and risks that arise during the training package development process. This educative function will support the continuous improvement of training package development, particularly during the formative stages of the new arrangements.

We will leverage our deep understanding of the VET system and draw on our regulatory skill set and capability and are committed to working with government and sector partners to transition to these new arrangements.

Stay safe and well,

In this edition

• ASQA announced as the national training package assurance body
• Cost Recovery Implementation Statement from 1 July 2022
• New Course Accreditation guide
• Sector engagement
• Federal Court rulings
• Update for providers impacted by floods
• Our journey towards self-assurance

and more