November 30th, 2025
Latest News
As mentioned in early October 2025, the Acting NSW Minister for Education and Early Learning has today issued a new Ministerial Guideline to NSW's early childhood education and care sector: Compliance History Publication Responsibilities for Services and Approved Providers.
According to the NSW Regulatory Authority, this Ministerial Guideline requires every service in NSW to display a short-form compliance and quality history, which includes their current and previous quality ratings, compliance history from the past two years (or to the date the service was approved or transferred to the current Approved Provider), and any prosecutions where there is a plea of guilt, finding of guilt or conviction.
This information forms part of the service’s prescribed information, which must be displayed prominently and visibly at the service premises. The NSW ECEC Regulatory Authority has developed a template that services must use to display this information and meet this requirement by 20 November 2025 (two weeks after this Ministerial Guideline has been issued).
Members would be aware of ACA NSW's public and persistent concerns about:
the unbelievably high level of breaches by NSW services compared to the rest of the nation combined, and
the inference by the ABC's Four Corners' Betrayal of Trust episode that Approved Providers do not have full access to all their compliance history (especially the evidence used to substantiate them).
Consequently, NSW Approved Providers may wish to retrieve all information, documents and evidence held by the NSW Regulatory Authority about their NSW service(s)' non-compliances using your freedom of information rights.
The NSW Department of Education must legally and appropriately provide relevant documents under the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (aka GIPA). To get a copy of your own service(s)' information, documents and evidence recorded and used to substantiate your service(s)' non-compliances, ACA NSW has produced:
a template text for such GIPA requests; and
a step-by-step guide on how to apply.
Please note: the fee for each GIPA application is $30. Hence, NSW Approved Providers might be choose to seek such information from when their service was first approved. And the process may need to be repeated once a year thereafter.
Although all NSW services must comply with the new Ministerial Guideline, the use of the additional information received under GIPA may also be useful, including challenging the basis of disputed non-compliance(s).
Although regulatory enforcement actions are necessary for persistent transgressions (especially when children are at risk), ACA NSW would prefer if the NSW Regulatory Authority and the sector focus on prevention than having non-compliances, serious incidents or child safety incidents occur in the first place.
For any further information/clarification, members may like to seek their own legal advice, or contact the ACA NSW team via 1300 556 330 or nsw@childcarealliance.org.au.
PUBLISHED: 6 NOVEMBER 2025
