Queensland's latest regulatory data: What ECEC providers need to know in 2026

Queensland's latest early childhood education and care (ECEC) regulatory data provides approved providers and service leaders with more than a snapshot of regulatory activity, it offers an opportunity to understand where non-compliance is occurring and where services may need to strengthen their own systems and practices.

Published by the Queensland Early Childhood Regulatory Authority, the latest data covers the fourth quarter of the 2025–26 financial year, from April to June 2026, and includes information across licensing, quality, compliance and enforcement, notifications and complaints.

For providers, the figures provide a useful opportunity to look beyond their own service and consider the regulatory trends emerging across Queensland.

And some of those trends warrant attention.

Inadequate supervision continues to stand out as the most frequently identified breach of the Education and Care Services National Law in Queensland.

During the April to June quarter, 223 breaches of section 165, relating to inadequate supervision, were recorded.

The figure was relatively consistent with the previous quarter, when 222 breaches were recorded, but higher than the 209 breaches recorded during the corresponding quarter in 2025.

The prevalence of supervision breaches is particularly significant for long day care and outside school hours care (OSHC).

Long day care services accounted for 166 inadequate supervision breaches during the quarter, while 50 were recorded across OSHC services.

For approved providers and service leaders, the figures provide an opportunity to consider whether supervision is being treated as an active practice rather than simply a documented requirement.

Supervision plans, educator positioning, transitions, head counts, communication between educators, environmental risks and the needs of individual children all contribute to the effectiveness of a service's supervision arrangements.

Another notable feature of the latest data is the increase in breaches relating to inappropriate discipline.

Queensland recorded 167 breaches of section 166 of the National Law during the quarter, compared with 86 in the previous quarter and 115 during the same period last year.

Long day care accounted for 154 of those breaches.

The increase provides an important prompt for providers to consider how expectations around interactions with children are understood, observed and embedded across their services.

Policies and induction processes provide an important foundation, but providers should also consider how educator practice is monitored, how concerns are escalated and how leaders respond when interactions do not align with legislative requirements or the service's expectations.

The Regulatory Authority took 228 statutory compliance actions during the quarter, an increase of 9.1 per cent compared with the corresponding quarter last year.

While compliance notices remained the most frequently used statutory action, one of the most significant movements occurred in emergency action notices.

There were 36 emergency action notices issued between April and June 2026, compared with nine during the same quarter last year.

Compliance directions also increased from 31 to 40.

Emergency action notices are used where the Regulatory Authority is satisfied that a service is operating in a manner that poses, or is likely to pose, an immediate risk to the safety, health or wellbeing of a child or children.

For providers, the increase reinforces the importance of identifying and responding to risks before they escalate to a point requiring urgent regulatory intervention.

The regulatory data also provides useful insight into breaches of the Education and Care Services National Regulations.

The most frequently recorded breach related to Regulation 103 — premises, furniture and equipment to be safe, clean and in good repair, with 131 breaches recorded during the quarter.

This was followed by 48 breaches of Regulation 170, which requires approved providers to take reasonable steps to ensure nominated supervisors, staff members and volunteers follow the service's policies and procedures.

Regulation 170 is particularly relevant from a governance perspective.

Having compliant policies and procedures is only one part of the obligation. Providers also need systems that support those policies being understood and consistently implemented in everyday practice.

Other commonly identified breaches related to incident, injury, trauma and illness records, emergency and evacuation procedures, and health, hygiene and safe food practices.

The Regulatory Authority received 3,146 notifications of incidents or complaints during the quarter, an increase of 7.3 per cent compared with the corresponding period last year.

This included 2,450 incident notifications and 696 complaint notifications.

A further 392 complaints were made directly to the Regulatory Authority, representing an increase of 15 per cent year-on-year.

The Department notes that notification numbers should be interpreted carefully. Queensland providers have high rates of reporting, and notifications may be submitted even where an incident ultimately does not meet the required reporting threshold.

Multiple notifications or complaints may also relate to the same event.

Nevertheless, the figures provide another reason for providers to regularly review their incident management, escalation and notification processes and ensure leaders understand when and how matters need to be reported.

The compliance figures should also be considered alongside Queensland's broader quality results.

As at 30 June 2026, 91 per cent of Queensland services were rated Meeting, Exceeding or Excellent against the National Quality Standard (NQS).

The proportion of services rated Working Towards fell from 10.9 per cent at 30 June 2025 to 8.7 per cent a year later.

Long day care improved from 90 per cent Meeting or above to 92.1 per cent, while OSHC increased from 85.1 per cent to 87.9 per cent.

Family day care recorded a particularly strong movement, increasing from 68.1 per cent to 76.5 per cent of services Meeting or above.

However, the proportion of Queensland services rated Exceeding the NQS decreased from 16 per cent to 14.5 per cent, while Meeting increased from 72.9 per cent to 76.6 per cent.

The results show an overall improvement in the number of services achieving the NQS while also providing an interesting point of reflection for services seeking to move beyond Meeting towards Exceeding practice.

Regulatory data is most valuable when it is used as more than a retrospective measure of what has gone wrong elsewhere.

For approved providers, nominated supervisors and quality and compliance leaders, the latest Queensland results provide an opportunity to test their own systems against the areas appearing most frequently in regulatory activity.

Services may wish to consider:

• Are our supervision arrangements consistently understood and implemented across every room, environment and transition?
• How are we monitoring educator interactions with children and responding to emerging concerns?
• Are our policies reflected in everyday practice, or are they primarily documents?
• Are premises, furniture and equipment being proactively inspected and maintained?
• Do leaders understand incident escalation and notification requirements?
• What evidence demonstrates that identified risks result in meaningful changes to practice?

These questions also have relevance beyond compliance.

They connect directly with continuous improvement, governance and leadership, particularly Quality Area 7, where effective leadership and management systems are expected to support the operation of a quality service.

Queensland's regulatory data provides providers with visibility over the issues being identified across thousands of ECEC services.

It should not necessarily be read as a prediction of where the regulator will focus next, nor does an increase in a particular category automatically mean the underlying prevalence of that issue has increased by the same amount.

What it does provide is evidence of the areas currently appearing in regulatory activity.

For providers, that creates an opportunity.

Rather than waiting for an assessment and rating visit, complaint, incident or regulatory intervention to expose a weakness, services can use sector-wide data to challenge their own assumptions, review their systems and identify where practice can be strengthened.

In an increasingly complex regulatory environment, understanding what the data is telling the sector, and responding to it proactively, can form an important part of strong governance and continuous improvement.

The Queensland Early Childhood Regulatory Authority's latest licensing, quality, compliance and enforcement, and notification and complaint data is available through the Queensland Government's Regulatory Data pages.