VET provider ordered to pay $23,000 in penalties for acting outside the scope of their registration

The Federal Court has ordered a training provider to pay significant penalties for 11 contraventions of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (the NVR Act). 

On 1 February 2022, the Federal Court found that Rose Training Australia Pty Ltd had breached the NVR Act on 8 occasions between October 2017 and February 2019 by purporting to issue certification for qualifications without appropriate registration. 

The Court also found that on 3 occasions between December 2017 and March 2018, Rose Training received and undertook assessment of part of the same VET course without registration to do so.

Justice Collier ordered Rose Training to pay a total pecuniary penalty of $23,000 and $45,000 in costs.

In her judgement, Justice Collier took into account that public confidence in the value of VET training and qualifications may be undermined when training organisations act outside the scope of their registration, and that the scale and nature of the industry means it is important for training providers to adhere to regulations to ensure confidence in the integrity of the industry.  

Her Honour also said that the affected students had been deprived of the certainty of having properly issued VET qualifications, as they received qualifications that were liable to be cancelled as being issued by Rose Training outside of its permitted scope of registration.

Rose Training admitted to the breaches and cooperated with ASQA during the investigation and proceedings. An enforceable undertaking was previously entered into with ASQA to compensate the affected students if they wished to update their qualifications to the new courses. 

A statement of facts was agreed by ASQA and Rose Training, together with agreement on an appropriate penalty to be sought from the Federal Court. Rose Training also agreed to pay ASQA’s costs, with the Court accepting the time and costs involved in pursuing the breaches in the absence of Rose Training’s cooperation would have been significantly greater.

ASQA’s CEO Saxon Rice welcomed the Court’s decision. ‘Our goal is to ensure quality education and training so that students, employers, governments and the community can have confidence in the integrity of qualifications issued by training providers,’ Ms Rice said.

‘A single provider operating outside of their registration has the ability to diminish the integrity of the entire sector, letting down students who are trying to learn new skills and risking the reputation of so many other legitimate and hard-working training providers.’

ASQA began investigations into Rose Training’s activities in March 2019.