Enforcement action for national approved provider over another lock in bus incident

A national early childhood education and care (ECEC) approved provider has been issued with an emergency action notice and a compliance notice in relation to an incident in which a child was left alone on the service’s bus for approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes until found by a member of the public.

 

The Queensland Regulatory Authority found that the approved provider did not comply with the following provisions of the Education and Care Services National Law (National Law) Queensland and the Education and Care Services National Regulations (Regulations):

 

1. Section 165(1) of the National Law – the provider failed to ensure that a child being educated and cared for by the service was adequately supervised at all times the child is in the care of the service 
2. Section 167(1) of the National Law – the provider failed to ensure that every reasonable precaution is taken to protect children being educated and cared for by the service from harm and any hazard likely to cause injury. 
3. Regulation 170(1) – the provider did not take reasonable steps to ensure nominated supervisors and staff members of, and volunteers at, the service follow the policies and procedures required under regulation 168.
4. Regulation 177(2) – the provider did not take reasonable steps to ensure documents referred to in sub-regulation (1) are accurate; in this case, the documents were the children’s attendance records for the service and the bus.

 

In response to the incident, the Regulatory Authority issued a number of edicts to the service, including: 

 

• Updates to the Transport Children in vehicles procedure 
• Updates to the ‘Nominated Supervisor Responsibilities’ module to include content and assessment about their role in transporting children
• A documented process to oversee the Daily Bus checklist

 

• Updates to the Manage Home Pick up and Drop off procedure
• Detailing controls put in place in response to the incident
• Updates to the Bus Induction Checklist

 

• Update the procedures to ensure that educators in the room who are expecting children from the bus are promptly told of the child’s absence
• Update procedures to ensure that there is a process to follow up unexplained/unexpected absences of children to be collected by the service bus immediately and as soon as practicable after they do not arrive
• Update the risk assessment plan to ensure that it is specific to the service in question 

 

• Provide evidence of updates to recruitment and retention processes of staff at this service to ensure that the service is adequately staffed
• Evidence that changes have been made to ensure these issues have been addressed on a systemic level.

 

When responding to the requests from the Regulatory Authority, the approved provider indicated that the person named in the initial incident had resigned from their position, and that the service no longer provides a home collection or delivery service at any of their centres, therefore no training was provided to the staff in the transportation policies or procedures in relation to this area.

 

A new Area Manager was also appointed by the approved provider to oversee this service (and three others), indicating that their role would be to support and mentor staff, and conduct regular audits to ensure staff are complying with the policies and procedures.

 

Guidance and support about the safe transportation of children is available here.