Request of Information notices

The Education Standards Board (ESB) refers to the Education and Care Services National Law (South Australia) Act 2010 (National Law) and Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 (National Regulations) when assessing possible non-compliance.

When we are seeking background information and documentation regarding an incident or complaint or as part of the Quality Assessment process, we send you a Request of Information (ROI) notice pursuant to either section 206 or section 215 of the National Law. At the beginning of this financial year, we made some changes to this process to address feedback from the sector. The new forms are in their last stages of finalisation and will be available and in use by the end of 2024.

It was identified in a Regulatory Roundtable meeting earlier this year that when the ESB sends an ROI notice it can feel abrupt, threatening or uncomfortable, particularly as part of the notice lists the penalties for failing to comply with the notice. We have taken this feedback on board and have adapted our processes to ensure that we are providing a clearer explanation of what we require and why.

ROI notices provide you with assurance of the following:

• If we make a ROI, it means we don’t have all the information required to make a fair and appropriate decision. The more information we are provided at the notification stage, the less information we must request.
• Fair process – the notice gives you certainty and clarity of what is being looked at. The information we request considers unique service context when assessing circumstances of any alleged non-compliance.
• By giving you the opportunity to provide us with all the information, we can make a proportionate risk-based response based on all relevant facts when responding to non-compliance.
• The ROI notice also protects your legal rights as it sets out the information that we require, the incident that it relates to and details of the alleged breach.

Your assistance with returning the requested information in a timely manner will greatly help in the length of time it takes to deal with a case.

Whilst the length of time it takes to investigate a case is sometimes dependent upon the response of other agencies such as South Australia Police, the Department for Education, or the Department for Child Protection, we endeavour to investigate an incident within a reasonable timeframe. 

Reducing the amount of time a case is under investigation has the following benefits:

• the service can efficiently deal with non-compliance and move forward
• it instils confidence in the community that any non-compliance is managed appropriately by the ESB
• it reduces any stress and anguish that could be caused by a lengthy investigation.

By giving regulated parties the opportunity to respond and act to achieve or return to compliance, coupled with the ESB conducting timely and quality investigations, we will be working together to provide the high quality experience children deserve and their parents expect.