Governance and reporting

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Strategic plan

The Education Standards Board is committed to a contemporary approach to regulating education and early childhood services, to support the best interests of children and young people, their families and our other stakeholders. We value our role in assisting families to access high-quality education and early childhood services. This supports the commitment of the South Australian Government to strive for excellence in every child and young person’s growth and learning and development.

Our vision:

Making a positive difference to the lives of South Australian children and young people by ensuring they have access to high-quality education and early childhood services.

Values:

The Education Standards Board will uphold public sector values through its decisions, actions and interactions. In addition, we are committed to our values:

Honesty and integrity: we are consistent and fair in our actions to encourage openness and transparency
Professionalism: we have a culture that strives for excellence and aims to improve productivity
Sustainability: we respond to change and proactively improve
Collaboration and engagement: we collaborate in our work practices
Accountability: we make decisions that comply with legislation, are ethical and consistent with approved policies and procedures.

Strategic priorities

The Board's strategic priorities for 2022-24 support the delivery of the statutory functions under s29 of the Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011. These include:

1. Regulate schools, student exchange organisations and early childhood education and care services (services) with a risk- and standards-based approach

Rate and monitor services for compliance against the National Quality Framework
Determine applications under the National Quality Framework
Respond to non-compliance against legislation within the Board's remit
Regulate student exchange organisations
Register and review registration of schools

2. Positively engage with stakeholders

Influence legislation and policy for education and early childhood programs and services
Provide advice and guidance to early childhood providers and services and schools to support compliance

3. Support our people and improve our business

Continually improve our practice
Protect and promote the welfare, health and safety of our team
Demonstrate a commitment to reconciliation

Annual report

The Education Standards Board provides an annual report to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills each year under s279 of the Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Stanards) Act 2011. This report is tabled in the South Australian Parliament and made available to the public (s280 the Act).

Education Standards Board 2021-22 Annual Report (pdf)

View 2021-22 Annual Report online

See past annual reports

Regulatory data

Publishing regulatory data provides transparency around the Education Standards Board's work and encourages voluntary compliance and improved service quality by regulated parties (approved providers, education and care services and educators). Regulatory data is also published in our annual report, and includes schools and international education.

Early childhood sector performance 2021-22

Unless otherwise stated the figures provided below relate to South Australian education and care services regulated under the National Quality Framework.

Sector profile

National Quality Framework Providers

On 30 June 2022 there were 426 approved providers, a minor decrease from 430 approved providers in 2020-21. Eighty-five percent (363) providers operate a single service.

In SA, 39% of approved providers are government operated, compared to 11% of state/territory and local government providers nationally.

Approved early childhood education and care services

There are 1252 NQF approved services in SA at 30 June 2022, an increase of 2% compared to the previous year. The increase included 16 long day care, one preschool and eight out of school hours care newly approved services.

Residual services

There are 117 residual services regulated under state legislation that are outside the scope of the NQF. Of these, 93 (83%) are provided by the South Australian Department of Education.

Residual service type	Number of services
In-home care	9
Mobile care	6
Occasional care	102

Quality

As at June 30 2022, 96% of services have a quality rating, compared to 90% nationally. There are 465 services rated under the 2018 National Quality Standards and 740 currently rated under the 2012 National Quality Standards. Forty-six services are approved and not yet rated as they are within the first 12 months of operation.

South Australia has 13.5% of services rated ‘Working Towards’, compared to 12.5% nationally. The number of services rated Meeting or higher has steadily increased year on year over the past four years.

Quality ratings of services by year at June 30 2022

Year	Working towards		Meeting		Exceeding		Excellent		Total
2018-19	205	18%	370	33%	545	48%	8	1%	1,128
2019-20	168	15%	428	37%	558	48%	8	1%	1,162
2020-21	166	14%	469	40%	546	46%	5	1%	1,186
2021-22	162	13%	507	42%	533	44%	4	0%	1,206

Proportion of quality ratings by service type compared to national average at 30 June 2022

	Working Towards		Meeting		Exceeding*
	SA	National	SA	National	SA	National
Long day care	15%	12%	47%	63%	38%	25%
Preschool	2%	5%	24%	38%	74%	57%
Outside school hours care	23%	16%	56%	73%	21%	12

*Exceeding also includes services rated as Excellent

Applications

Total applications received in 2021-22

All applications are assessed fairly, consistently and efficiently in accordance with our risk-based approach to early childhood regulation. This helps safeguard and preserve a high level of compliance in the early childhood sector.

Application type	Number
Waiver applications	540
Amend service approval	163
Out of scope applications*	110
Service approval	53
Transfer of service approval	40
Provider approval	36
Voluntary suspension of service approval	21
Amend provider approval	10
Review of ratings by the regulatory authority	8
Total	981

*Out of scope applications include applications from residual services under Schedule 2 of the Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011, which fall outside the scope of the National Law.

Waiver applications

Approved providers can apply for a waiver of an element of the requirements of the Law or Regulations. Once approved, waivers allow services to continue to provide compliant education and care while dealing with special circumstances or unexpected events. Most waiver applications are for temporary waivers, where the issue can be addressed within 12 months. At 30 June 2022, 9% of services in SA had a temporary waiver in force.

Proportion of services with a waiver in force at 30 June 2022

Waiver category	SA	National average
Physical environment	0.3%	3.0%
Staffing	8.9%	8.5%
Total	9.3%	11.1%

Proportion of services with a waiver in force by service type at 30 June 2022

Service type	SA	National average
Long day care	12.1%	18%
Preschool	2.2%	3.2%
Outside school hours care	13.8%	5%
Family day care	0%	1.2%

Notifications and complaints

Services are required by the National Law and Regulations to notify the Board of incidents and complaints from caregivers, educators, members of the public and external organisations.

Where reporting indicates an unacceptable risk to children’s health, safety and wellbeing, the Board takes action to respond to that risk and bring service back to compliance.

Notifications in 2021-22

In 2021-22 the Board received 4884 incident notifications, compared to 2369 in the previous reporting period. This high number of notifications includes non-regulatory notifications related to COVID-19. The majority of notifications lodged require no further action as the notification does not reflect concerns or risk to children’s health, safety and wellbeing.

Incident notifications received by the Board in 2021-22

Outcome	Number received
No further action required	3498
Action required	1386
Total	4884

Serious incidents are a subset of incidents and include an injury or illness where a child does or ought to seek medical attention, when children are missing or unaccounted for, locked in or out of the service or removed from the service without authorisation.

Serious incident notifications received by the Board in 2021-22

Outcome	Number received*
No further action required	1798
Action required	196
Total	1966

* Notified under regulation 175(2)(c) of the National Law: ‘any circumstance arising at the service that poses a risk to the health, safety and wellbeing of children’. The Guide to the National Quality Framework lists ‘outbreak of an infectious disease’ as an example of such a circumstance. In South Australia we follow the SA Health advice regarding notifiable infections and only expect services to notify the Board of an outbreak if they have a requirement to notify SA Health.

Complaints received in 2021-22

The Board received 518 complaints, a decrease from 550 complaints received in 2020-21. A complaint can be raised both directly to the Board and at the service.

Service type	Direct to Education Standards Board	Notified by service
Long day care	182	245
Out of school hours care	22	21
Preschool	7	16
Family day care	6	6
Residual service	0	2
Unknown service	11	0
Total	228	290

Monitoring and enforcement

Regulated parties are willing and able to comply most of the time. When a regulated party is found to be unwilling or unable to comply with their regulated obligations, voluntarily or with reasonable assistance, the board uses regulatory tools to direct or enforce compliance.

Top five breaches of the National Law and Regulations 2021-22

National Law and Regulations breached*	Number of breaches
s165 A nominated supervisor must ensure all children are adequately supervised at all times when children are in the care of the service.	101
s174 Offence to fail to notify certain information to the Regulatory Authority – notification of serious incidents and complaints	42
r79 Service providing food and beverages	37
r90 Medical conditions policy	24
r97 Emergency and evacuation procedures	23

Breaches of the National Law were addressed through 154 caution letters and 21 statutory compliance actions.

Statutory compliance actions issued by type and year

Statutory compliance action	2021-22	2020-21
Emergency action notice	11	5
Compliance notice	6	9
Direction to exclude inappropriate persons	2	0
Condition imposed	6	16
Show cause for prohibition notice	1	0
Prohibition notice	1	2
Total	21	16