RTO owners and management must ensure that their organisations comply with regulatory obligations and legislative requirements to ensure their licence to operate from ASQA is not jeopardised. The consequences of non-compliance and failure to adhere to obligations can put your RTO at risk. The cost of non-compliance and regulatory action against your business is significant and difficult to recover from. The following advice highlights compliance risks to be aware of so RTOs can take action to ensure self-assurance processes are meeting requirements.
TAS’s don’t match information in RTO marketing materials:
The information contained in your TAS’s needs to be consistent with the information you are marketing on your website and in other marketing material. Details around course durations; course descriptions; attendance / participation requirements; entry requirements or selection criteria should be accurate in both sources. ASQA often finds non-compliances in performance assessments and with applications for additions to scope in evidence submitted as RTOs can fail to pay attention to detail with this critical information. Remember your websites are publicly available and can be accessed by ASQA at any time.
Trainers and assessors are not maintaining their staff profile evidence:
Some RTOs make assumptions that their trainers are current because they are working in industry or appear to be undertaking professional development regularly. However, many trainers and assessors don’t sufficiently document these activities systematically and on a consistent basis. In a performance assessment ASQA wants to see a documented analysis e.g. mapping of how your trainers / assessors meet industry currency requirements for each unit of competency they are delivering. If you don’t have a process in place to document these requirements at the unit of competency level you will not satisfy the requirements of the relevant clauses in the SRTOs 2015. Remember mapping should be at least at the element level for each unit to demonstrate that the maintenance of currency has addressed all the requirements.
Assessment tools do not meet unit of competency requirements:
Not having a process in place to validate / quality check assessment tools before implementation puts your RTO at potential risk of non-compliances as you have not determined if your assessment tools are fit for purpose and meet the requirements of the specific unit of competency. If you implement these resources without conducting this due diligence you could be impacting on student and industry outcomes and be deemed critically non-compliant in a performance assessment.
There is insufficient instructions for students and assessors in your assessment tools:
Assessors cannot collect sufficient evidence from students if assessment task instructions are vague and unclear. This in turn can impact on marking, recordkeeping and overall reliability of the assessors judgement. Instructions in assessment tasks need to be specific as possible. Benchmark answers and marking guides should be explicit and not be open to interpretation by assessors.
There are no benchmark answers or marking guides for assessment tasks:
If you do not have benchmark answers or marking guides for your assessors to refer to when making their judgements you cannot ensure your assessor is meeting the rules of evidence. Your assessors practices will not be consistent without providing sufficient guidance to your staff.
Get expertise:
- Retain a Compliance Advisor from EDministrate on a monthly basis to support your RTOs re-registration and other quality projects (think fractional Compliance Manager)
- Contract an Internal Auditor to review your self-assurance systems. EDministrate can provide you with an independent, unbiased perspective and valuable data on your RTOs compliance status that will tell you if you are meeting your regulatory obligations and contractual requirements
- Book a 1:1 Strategy Session with EDministrate to work through your quality and compliance problems and challenges so we can develop solutions and actionable strategies for you.
Other feature articles:
The ultimate guide to setting up a QMS in your RTO
A practical guide to self-assurance systems and processes for RTOs
The role of internal audit in RTO self-assurance
Benefits of having your internal audits conducted by an RTO consultant
Beginners guide to internal auditing in your RTO
References:
https://www.asqa.gov.au/resources/faqs/compliance
https://www.asqa.gov.au/standards
https://www.asqa.gov.au/faqs/how-does-asqa-determine-what-level-sanction-applies-non-compliance
