Conditions

State and territory regulatory authorities monitor education and care services’ compliance with the National Quality Framework (NQF). The safety, health and wellbeing of children attending early childhood education and care services is their first priority. Regulatory authorities aim to support approved providers and services to meet their regulatory requirements through education, monitoring, addressing non-compliance and ensuring that appropriate remediation action is taken if necessary.

The majority of early childhood education and care services operate in compliance with their regulatory requirements, however for a small proportion that do not, the regulatory authority will intervene. Regulatory authorities employ authorised officers to undertake compliance and monitoring – their powers are established in the National Law.

For more information on compliance and monitoring, read the Powers of regulatory authorities section of ACECQA’s Guide to the NQF.

A condition is a requirement or restriction that a regulatory authority requires a service or provider to comply with as part of the ongoing approval to operate. Conditions that services must comply with are published on their service approval certificate (which is displayed at the service) as well as on their listing on Find Child Care.

Imposing conditions on provider or service approval is one of the tools regulatory authorities use to ensure compliance with the National Quality Framework.

There are some conditions that all education and care services must comply with in order to be granted approval to operate. For example, all education and care services must operate in a way that:

• ensures the safety, health and wellbeing of the children being educated and cared for by the service: and
• meets the educational and developmental needs of the children being educated and cared for by the services.

Look for ‘Conditions’ in the Regulatory activities section on their service or provider page on StartingBlocks.gov.au

A regulatory authority may apply a condition at the point an application for approval or service approval is granted or by amending a provider or service approval if that provider or service is already operating. Conditions may be placed on:

Provider approval: to address issues that affect, or potentially affect, all the provider’s services.

For example, if the regulatory authority has concerns about an applicant’s management capacity, it might impose a condition limiting the number, or size, of services the provider can operate.

Service approval: to address issues relevant to the particular service.

For example, a regulatory authority might grant a service approval with a condition limiting the age of children that may attend, pending further information to satisfy the regulatory authority that the service premises is suitable for very young children (e.g. nappy changing facilities).

Nominated supervisor: conditions can restrict a person becoming a nominated supervisor.

For example, stopping a person becoming a nominated supervisor at services that educate and care for children 0-2 years of age, if their qualification or experience is specifically related to school age children.

If an approved provider does not comply with a condition, the regulatory authority may consider taking further compliance action.

Further information on compliance action can be found in our Child safety and compliance resource.

Unless the condition includes a duration period, the condition (or conditions) remain in place until removed by the regulatory authority. The regulatory authority can remove or vary a condition at any time and an approved provider can also apply for amendment or removal of a condition.