Complaints and appeals

No. The Standards require you to have complaints and appeals policies, and to make these publicly available and easily accessible. The policies must also clearly state how to lodge a complaint and how it will be handled.

Yes, in most cases learners must exhaust the RTO's complaints and appeals process first, and provide evidence to ASQA that they have completed this process before submitting a complaint to ASQA. In exceptional circumstances ASQA may consider a student’s complaint without this evidence.

Your RTO does not need to publish all the complaints it receives; only the Complaints and Appeals policy or policies must be publicly available.

However, Standard 6, clause 6.5 requires that you maintain secure records of all complaints and appeals and their outcomes.

The information contained in student complaints is recorded and contributes to making a determination whether further regulatory scrutiny of providers is required. ASQA assesses the information that it holds in relation to the conduct and compliance of providers, to determine if further regulatory scrutiny is warranted.  If further regulatory scrutiny is required, ASQA’s established performance assessment (audit) procedures apply.

ASQA will (unless exceptional circumstances exist) notify the provider concerned, to advise that it has been named as the subject of a complaint, and may suggest that providers take action to ensure that they remain compliant with their regulatory obligations.