SA adds additional Authorised Officers to implement findings from Royal Commission

The Education Standards Board (ESB), which serves as South Australia’s regulatory authority, is recruiting for additional authorised officers with a greater understanding of the regulatory environment and use of key regulatory concepts and frameworks to improve outcomes to support the implementation of assessment and rating visits following the findings of the state’s recent Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care.

 

The Commission emphasised the importance of the ESB’s role as a regulator, and in response the ESB has sharpened the focus of its assessment and rating of services. 

 

“Historically, Authorised Officers who carried out this work were recruited with a focus on their knowledge of the National Quality Framework and the early childhood education and care sector,” ESB information notes.  

 

“Our revised Regulatory Officer roles require, in addition to this knowledge, a greater understanding of the regulatory environment and use of key regulatory concepts and frameworks to improve outcomes.”

 

“It is our goal to have a multi-disciplinary team of Regulatory Officers who have a background in early childhood, regulatory experience or experience in administrative law decision making. This ensures that our Regulatory Officers can work together in undertaking our legislative functions, with shared knowledge of the sector and key regulatory concepts.”

 

Thus far in 2024 nine new staff with a variety of skills and experience have been recruited, including sourcing those with experience in assessing quality and compliance across a number of other local, state and federal government agencies.

 

A further 10 Regulatory Officers will be appointed in the coming months, to bring the total team to 26. This cohort will not only support the ESB to meet the requirements of the Royal Commission, but also to clear the backlog of services rated under the 2012 National Quality Standards, and to ensure all services are assessed and rated every three years.

 

To support the new Regulatory Officers, the ESB has designed and implemented a 14-week Early Childhood Services Regulatory Induction Program, which includes an overview of the sector, the National Quality Framework and training from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) and the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA). 

 

Further information is available here.