Sector Survey action plan

In May 2024, the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) facilitated a sector-wide survey to determine how stakeholders felt about their regulators and to identify areas for improvement. We tabled the following feedback at the July Regulatory Roundtable meeting before convening a subgroup to further investigate some key areas.

Key insights from the survey results

Top three performance areas in compliance-related interactions and communication categories:

• 67% agree that authorised officers acted professionally in compliance-related interactions
• 55% agreed that the ESB promotes continuous improvement in the provision of early childhood education and care services
• 59% responded that they were satisfied with interactions with the ESB.

Top three most frequent reasons for interaction with the ESB:

• notifications of incident or complaint
• application for waiver
• assessment and rating process.

Communication

• 75% of respondents indicated that direct communication through emailed newsletters, alerts and social media update were helpful
• 55% of respondents indicated that direct interaction with ESB staff either through face-to-face, email or telephone were helpful
• 50% of respondents indicated that the ESB website was helpful.

Bottom three rated performance areas related to engagement with the sector and compliance-related interactions:

• 21% of respondents agree that the ESB considers the administrative burden any new initiatives may have on the sector
• 43% agree that the way compliance processes were conducted was clearly communicated
• 35% agree that the ESB seeks the sector’s perspective on key issues.

The subgroup met to explore key themes and to provide context and evidence to support a targeted action plan. Thank you to participants for your invaluable input.

The action plan was tabled at the October Regulatory Roundtable meeting. It outlines the areas being targeted, shares specific deliverables that are linked to our strategic plan, and is clear on the success measures and deadlines.

The ESB will be proactively monitoring our progress in achieving these measures within deadlines and providing regular updates through our Regulatory Roundtable meetings and in our regulatory bulletins. While the action plan determines our short-term goals, these are long-term measures are seeking to improve. We will re-survey respondents in the future to measure directly against previous results to learn whether our actions have had impact and what we might change in working toward increasing positive responses.