After your performance assessment: If you’re non-compliant

If we find you’re non-compliant during a performance assessment, we’ll notify you about our findings, any decisions made as well as the next steps.

Helping providers to return to compliance

We have a dedicated compliance team that works directly with you to help you to return to compliance and continuously improve.

Our return to compliance approach includes:

giving you more time to comply
identifying ways to resolve disputes early
providing more comprehensive evidence in our reports
making distinctions between minor compliances and significant non-compliance.

Actions we take

Actions we usually take at this stage are to:

provide you with a non-compliance letter containing an opportunity to respond to the non-compliance within a short timeframe or request an Agreement to Rectify (ATR) over a longer time period
advise you of our intent to impose a sanction or condition and provide you with an opportunity to respond
advise you of our intent to reject your application and provide you with an opportunity to respond
reject your application (without an opportunity to respond).

Our actions are:

dependent on the seriousness of your non-compliance and extent of your commitment and capability
focused on ensuring you can remain compliant.

You’ll get a letter from us outlining next steps and any decisions made with your performance assessment report.

Your report will outline our findings about your performance against the standards and legislation.

The letter will explain actions or decisions made and give you options to respond to us.

How to respond to a non-compliance letter

This letter explains why you don’t comply and what you need to do.

It gives you an opportunity to explain your circumstances and show us that you’ve rectified your non-compliance or that you need more time to return to compliance.

You will get an Evidence of Compliance template with your letter. You can use that to respond to us and explain how you comply.

You may also get an Agreement to Rectify (ATR) template with your letter. If you need more time to rectify non-compliance you can use this template to ask for an ATR.

How to provide Evidence of Compliance

An Evidence of Compliance template helps you to describe the actions you’ve taken to comply.

You can use it to describe:

what you’ve reviewed and addressed to be compliant
what actions you took to rectify your non-compliance, supported by evidence
how you’ve managed issues impacting other students, including across other training products.

If you disagree with specific findings of non-compliance, you should also describe this in your response, and provide any supporting evidence.

We’ll consider your response in detail before we decide if we need to take further regulatory action.

When to request an Agreement to Rectify

If you need more time to rectify non-compliance you can request an ATR and use the ATR template.

An ATR is an agreement between you and ASQA. It identifies your plan to rectify or return to compliance in an agreed time (typically of up to 3 months).

You’ll get an ATR template with your letter and performance assessment report.

If you’ve rectified some non-compliance before you submit your ATR

If you request an ATR but have already fully addressed non-compliance against a specific clause or standard, you should complete an Evidence of Compliance template and send it with your ATR outlining what you've done.

After you’ve submitted your ATR: What happens next

Once an ATR is in place, you need to:

let us know about changes affecting your ability to comply within the agreed timeframes
work with us and respond to our information and evidence requests
submit a progress report if your ATR is for a duration of two months or more
rectify non-compliance and prepare evidence to show you’re compliant by the agreed end date.

After you complete your ATR

After you complete your ATR, you need to give us evidence that you now comply in a single response.

Reviewing our ATR with you

We may review and withdraw our ATR with you if:

we identify the ATR won’t help you to return to compliance
your risk of non-compliance increased, and we need to take alternative actions.

How to respond to a notice of intent letter

A notice of intent letter details the regulatory actions we intend to take after you respond. These may include:

a written direction to notify students of a specified matter
imposing a condition on your registration
amending or suspending the scope of your registration
rejecting your registration application
cancelling your registration.

You’ll have an opportunity to respond to us in writing and provide details of why this decision should not be made.

If we reject your application

If we reject your registration application, we’ll send you a letter to explain why. You can also ask us to review our decision.

Learn more about how we assess new registration applications or changes to existing registrations.

Registered training organisations (RTOs)

Initial RTO application

Renewal RTO application

Change to scope RTO application

Providers registered on Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS)

Initial CRICOS application

Renewal CRICOS application

Change to scope CRICOS application