Governance through change

Where providers have insufficient governance maturity, they may lack the agility to respond to sector changes and industry priorities or fail to assure compliance in a fast-evolving sector. This impacts on provider capacity for quality VET and increases the risk of inadvertent non-compliance.

ASQA has a focus on education, capacity building, engagement with governing bodies, and promotion of compliance. We will use our broad-based education and information for the sector to support and promote provider compliance through the actions they take to monitor evaluate and continuously improve outcomes. 

Scan key points

• Sector Reform Risk Analysis has identified that there is a cohort who have not updated ASQA on significant organisational changes; examples include conflicts of interest and allegations of fraud against the Commonwealth. ASQA will focus on Fit and Proper Persons declarations and notifications of material change.
• Further challenges are on the near horizon as the sector experiences large-scale reform and change. The sector has remained resilient during the pandemic; however, stakeholders have also indicated that the pace of change is increasing uncertainty in the sector about providers’ ability to comply and remain viable. ASQA will focus on timely payment of fees and charges, change of ownership and new market entrants.
• The e-scan has also identified that there is an emerging risk of increased opportunity for providers, who do not have genuine intent to deliver quality education, to exploit regulatory change and complexity. ASQA will leverage off intelligence partnerships with State/Territory and Federal Government stakeholders, as well as the development and deployment of intelligence strategies such as data-matching as a key control against fraud and non-compliance.

For more information see the Users the Standards for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) 2015 - Chapter 6—Regulatory compliance and governance practice.