Is a clean up on the cards? Make sure that records are kept securely 

Many early childhood education and care (ECEC) services take advantage of quieter periods of enrollment over Christmas and the New Year to tidy up records and clean out paperwork. 

While this time of year is a popular one to address these types of tasks, the Queensland Department of Education, in its capacity as the state’s regulatory authority, has reminded services of their legislative responsibilities, and regulations around privacy and confidentiality. 

Whether disposing of paper records – such as old enrolment records – or electronic records such as incident reports – services should review the relevant legislation for their state or territory, and consider how these records can be disposed of in line with requirements. 

This is particularly important for records containing personal details, such as a child’s name, age, date of birth, address and parent or carer information.

Services should also consider the different records which may be able to identify an individual such as photographs, audio recordings, records of employment, financial details, or date received electronically. 

Instead of disposing of records which don’t need to be kept, services may consider returning them to the family, using a shredder, or engaging professional waste disposal services. 

Relevant legislation and regulation

Services operating under the Education and Care Services National Law (National Law) must keep records in accordance with s. 175 of the National Law and Regulations 177, 178 and 183 of the Education and Care Services National Regulations.

Services operating under the Education and Care Services Act 2013 (Qld) (ECS Act) must keep records with section 128 of the ECS Act and Regulations 69 and 70 and Schedule 4 of the Education and Care Services Regulation 2013 (Qld).

ACECQA has recommended that all services review the guidance for record keeping in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse. 

This guidance reflects the Royal Commission’s recommendation that organisations engaged in child-related work retain records relating to child sexual abuse that has, or is alleged to have occurred, for at least 45 years. This guidance sets out best practice for record keeping and aims to:

• strengthen whole service awareness of child protections laws and individual reporting obligations, including resources related to child protection reporting
• enhance and appropriately maintain the record keeping practices of all employers and employees including volunteers in relation to actual or alleged incidents of child abuse
• ensure relevant records and information will be easily accessible to survivors of child sexual abuse.

Further information about record keeping requirements may be found here. 

The original version of this information, as shared by the Queensland Department of Education can be found here.