Speaker 1: 0:27

Hi everyone, welcome to the Vet Talks Future Proof your RTO session today. This session is the first in eSkills Vet Talks series where we're going to be unpacking all things vet and discussing a myriad of vet topics with industry experts over the next few months. In this session, we're going to explore critical considerations in preparing for the new standards so you can embrace these changes with confidence. To thank you for your time, we're going to provide you with a certificate of attendance as evidence of your professional development today and to ensure that you have something practical to take away, angela from Vervacity, who's with us right now, has been super kind to throw in a free 2025 Standards Readiness Checklist to help you prepare, or help you in your preparations for July 1. So we're going to share that download link for the checklist at the end of the session, so hang around for that.

Speaker 1: 1:32

If you have any questions, please add them to the chat, and Will, our Executive Performance Officer, who's also here with us today Hi, will will be collecting and collating your questions for a question and answer session later on in this session. And finally, we've shared a link to the practice guides for the new standards recently released by ASQA and that download link, or that link to those practice guides is in the chat panel, so feel free to click on that link if you haven't already checked out Asqua's practice guides. There's lots of practical tips and information and those two that are going to help you prepare and get ready for the standards on the 1st of July. So before we kick off, my name is Scott Rogers. I am CEO at eSkilled. A little bit about myself I've been in the vet sector for about 15 years and had extensive experience across as CEO of three different R here speaking in my capacity as CEO of eSkilled RTO Software, and I'll hand you over to Angela to tell you a little bit about herself and Angela from Vivacity.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Thank you, scott. Hi, so my name is Angela Connell Richards. I'm the CEO and Founder of Vivacity Coaching and Consulting and we're now in our 16th year helping registered training organisations to get compliance, save time and save money. I've been in the training industry for over 30 years, so a bit longer than you, scott, and I've owned and operated three of my own RTOs, but I've worked in the capacity as a trainer and assessor delivering cert two to diploma in business, capacity as a trainer and assessor delivering cert 2 to diploma in business, as well as training compliance operations manager, ceo. So I've worked in a variety of different roles within rtos and for the last 16 years we've been helping rtos with their compliance, as well as cry cost providers, and in the last couple of years we've also been helping people to set up as a group training organisation so GTO. So we've got extensive experience around that area and we've got about 15 people on our team to help you out with all of that.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Awesome, thanks, angela. So we're going to kick off now and I just want to thank Angela for coming here today and bringing her expertise to help us out with some of these questions and help us prepare for the standards. Angela, can you let us know what you think is the biggest mindset shift, I guess, for RTOs that need to make preparations for the new standards?

Speaker 2: 4:29

Thanks, scott, and I'd just like to say it's been a pleasure to be able to join you on delivering this webinar as well. So, when it comes to mindset with the new standards, there's been a lot of people who we're still talking to, people who don't understand that this comes in on the 1st of July. We're not far away from the 1st of July, so I think a lot of people are waiting. They're waiting to see what happens if they get an audit or what's going to change.

Speaker 2: 5:01

What we've already noticed this year as consultants in the industry is ASQA are already auditing against the new requirements, even though they don't officially have any tools. They actually don't have an audit checklist. They don't have a self-assessment checklist against the new standards yet we know this because we've got a couple of initial registrations we're trying to submit. We can't submit them right now because there's no document and ASQA is not ready for it. So, even though ASQA is not ready, we need to be ready, and one of the important things that I've seen when it comes to the new standards is we need to have a culture of compliance throughout our RTO. We need to have a culture of compliance throughout our RTO, and that culture should include a major part, which is the biggest difference in these standards is risk management, continuous improvement and accountability within your leadership team. So I think that would be in a nutshell what I would say is the biggest shift.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Awesome. Thanks for that. And so let's jump in and unpack things a little bit Before we kick off. I wanted to just, I guess, take a bit of a look backwards at the current sort of status of affairs in compliance and VET, and in preparations for the session, I was looking back through some of ASQA's audit reports and just looking at how RTOs are tracking in terms of performance assessments, audits, whatever you want to call them, and what does compliance look like currently.

Speaker 1: 6:43

And when I looked at the 2023 reports, I found some pretty shocking stats. So, of the 379 performance assessments in 23 to 24, 60% of the RTOs were non-compliant. Of those 60,. Of those 229 RTOs that were non-compliant, 134 managed to get back to compliance. Rtos that were non-compliant 134 managed to get back to compliance, but a shocking 25% of that 379 RTOs audited basically didn't make it through. They were either closed or faced serious regulatory action. So I found that pretty shocking. And when I looked at ASQA's first half of year report for this year, the stats have actually got worse. So 175 performance assessments instead of 60% non-compliance across RTOs. 80% of non-compliant RTOs were non-compliant at audit or on a performance assessment and of those 38%, there were 38% closures. So, if anything, things have got worse, and Angela and I were talking about this earlier and I think Angela had some insights to share there on why things may have got a bit more challenging in the last six months.

Speaker 2: 8:10

Yeah, my thoughts on it. We are currently in an economic environment that is not so buoyant. There's a downturn in government funding. There's also a big switch over with the national government wanting to provide free education through TAFE, so that's put a lot of pressure on RTOs trying to get more clients or more students and then also trying to balance that compliance side. So managing that balance between compliance and business and how do you ensure that you've still got students in the door but whilst also maintaining your compliance and I think that's one of the major issues is we're so busy trying to get new students that compliance, unfortunately, is not being a priority.

Speaker 2: 9:03

And I've also seen so far this year I was looking at some stats as well 80 RTOs have withdrawn their registration so far this year. So there's been a number of RTOs who have felt the pressure and decided that they, in particular with the new standards, don't want to go through all the work of updating to the new standards when they're already struggling. But I've got good news there. There is there is some massive changes in this, in the standards, but there's also a lot that are stayed the same. The main focus is that risk management, and we're going to be talking about that more today.

Speaker 1: 9:45

I think you also mentioned that you'd noted that ASQA seems to be already doing performance assessments against the current standards, although the framework's not, you know, currently recognised.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Yeah, yeah, definitely. We're already experiencing that. In particular, any applications that were submitted even prior to 1 May, they're asking for further evidence now. So if it's initial registration or an addition to scope or re-registration, they're now asking for further evidence. It was a bit like they'd lost everything. So we'd submitted everything on Asquanet and like they'd lost all that information because they were asking for the same information again. So, fortunately, we had all our files ready and were able to provide all of those documents. But, yes, we certainly are seeing some changes, and the other one that I'd mentioned earlier was assessment. Validation was not a focus at audit at all, but this year we have found there's been a switch back to ensuring that RTOs are validating their assessment tools.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Okay, awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:57

So, look, I think those stats sort of speak for themselves in making it clear you know the risk environment's pretty, you know it's serious from the perspective of you know the risk environment's pretty, you know it's serious from the perspective of you know, as RTOs, we need to make sure that we're paying attention, because I think those previous stats had some really clear areas that RTOs struggle with.

Speaker 1: 11:21

We've decided to structure this session around those areas specifically, because obviously we could spend days talking about the standards and the changes and deep diving, because we only have an hour. We're going to look at three areas within the standards and particularly common non-compliances, and then, obviously, what things and considerations to look at in preparation for those standards and ensuring that you don't fall into the same traps that other RTOs seem to be. So those quality areas are quality area one, three and four, and so we're going to kick off with trainer and assessor competence. It's the number one area of non-compliance for RTOs. Still to this day, rtos seem to really struggle with staying on top of all the requirements there. So, angela, can you talk us through, obviously, some of the considerations that we need to look at around training and assessor competency in preparation for the standards?

Speaker 2: 12:28

Yeah, yeah for sure. We've found quite often when we go to audit with clients that trainers and assessors are often the highest non-compliance area, and that's been for many, many years. And the main issue is that mapping so mapping the trainer and assessor skills and knowledge against the units of competencies that they are delivering, and that includes their currency within the workplace, within the industry, professional development as well as maintaining their VET skills, as well as maintaining their vet skills as well. So there's not a lot that has changed with regards to trainers and assessors, other than it's just been clarified a bit more around vet workforce and how they fall within the vet workforce and what are the requirements, and basically they've relaxed a bit around supervision, so having trainers and assessors working under supervision. So these are trainers that do not currently hold the cert for in training and assessment, but they can work under supervision and they've relaxed those requirements within these, the new standards, and the main reason why that they've done that is because we saw a lot of trainers leave the industry because they didn't want to update their qualifications, and then we also found that it was very hard to get new trainers and assessors in because we didn't have a transition model, we didn't have a process for ensuring that we're able to bring someone in under a mentorship sort of guide. So they're the main changes that have happened. They've now relaxed the qualifications so the trainer and assessor now can just hold the cert for in training and assessment, being the 40116. Now the great thing about this is they've changed the focus that the trainer and assessor has to update their qualification every time a new qualification comes out. It is now they've got the Cert IV in training and assessment. They don't need to update their qualification. However, they need to demonstrate that they are undertaking professional development as well as industry professional development, and that needs to be mapped within the trainer's matrix. So we need to have all of that information mapped in there, and a professional development plan is going to be the most important part. So that's what comes under.

Speaker 2: 15:03

The new standards is how are you mapping the trainer's and assessor's skills and knowledge against the unit of competencies that they are delivering, whether it's a direct match to the units that they hold or their relevant industry experience?

Speaker 2: 15:18

And the other great area is working under supervision. Now, with that, if you are going to have trainers and assessors working under supervision, you need to have a policy and process for how you're going to monitor those trainers and assessors. So trainers and assessors who do not currently hold the qualification in training and assessment, and if you do engage a trainer and assessor who doesn't hold that qual, that they and if you do engage a trainer and assessor who doesn't hold that qual, that they are committed to enrolling into and completing the Cert IV and training assessment within a two-year period. So that's a part of the process. If you're going to be recruiting new trainers and assessors and they don't hold the qual, they need to have a willingness to be able to complete the Cert IV in training and assessment and that willingness to map their current skills and knowledge against the unit of competencies. That's the massive difference that I've seen.

Speaker 1: 16:21

One of the things I noted as well is that RTOs need to have or whoever's you know approving the evidence that's uploaded to a trainer matrix needs to ensure they have a process for validating that evidence as well Correct and keeping evidence and that's going to be part of your risk management?

Speaker 2: 17:00

Yeah, yeah, so under the governance quality area, it's that risk management. So how are you managing the risks of all of your trainers and assessors, so ensuring that you've got relevant and current industry skills and knowledge? Yep.

Speaker 1: 17:20

So how does, like there's a lot to manage, like an RTO that has you, you know, 20 trainers, uh, you know, across multiple industries? Uh, how does an rto manage that many trainers with that much evidence, uh, where every single unit that they hold has to have professional development, industry currency and credentials mapped against it? What, what, what are the recommendations, not only for collecting and collating that, but how do they ensure that they stay on top of it? Because I think, you know, every RTO sets out with good intentions. I think a lot of RTOs have a trainer matrix spreadsheet. You know it's pretty standard in most organisations but still, you know, year on year on year on year, 60% to 80% of RTOs are failing in that area.

Speaker 2: 18:09

Yeah, my recommendation and it also falls under the VET workforce requirements under the new standards is an annual performance review and part of that annual performance review with your and it should be all staff, because now the new standards actually require all of your staff within your RTO to have VET professional development and it's where you are updating. So, in particular, with trainers and assessors. They're updating their resume, they're updating any qualifications or VET professional development or industry professional development and in a central register, and that could be through your student management system or a compliance management system or, if you want to go old school, within a spreadsheet. The good thing about an online system is you're able to upload those documents as well so that you have that evidence there. But it should be like an annual thing that you are doing with all of your trainers and assessors to ensure that they are meeting the requirements.

Speaker 2: 19:14

As an RTO, it's your responsibility to ensure that your trainers and assessors do have that currency and do have updated trainers matrices that include all of their professional development. So it's the most simple way I can go is with that annual performance review, but also you could have a system where the trainer can log in and upload all of their PD as they go and have it as a reminder. It might be a monthly reminder. Have you done any PD in the last month? If so, can you provide us some evidence, a certificate, a receipt for that PD that you completed? And the biggest part is the reflection on the PD that they've completed. So it's not just here's my receipt, here's my certificate, it is what did I learn and how am I going to apply that within my practices?

Speaker 1: 20:13

Yeah, cool, yeah, and I think, like if you've got a capable system that can remind you of you know, currency expiring or currency evidence against currency expiring, that can send emails or tasks, anything, any system that you can implement that is proactive rather than reactive. I think is is really important because you don't want to get to the point where your Trainers already currency has already run out when you're telling them to get back out into industry and get you know, get current again. You want to be on the front foot for that um to ensure you don't enter into that um point of um non-compliance. Uh, cool, okay, thanks, angela, that was really insightful. Um, and jumping across now to the second biggest area of non-compliance, which is assessment practice um, crazy, it's training and assessment. You think we'd be good at assessment, but still it's. You know, rtos really struggle, particularly in the area of assessing skills and using the correct practice. Have you got any tips you know, or understanding in terms of how RTOs can avoid, you know, ongoing non-compliances in the area of assessment?

Speaker 2: 21:30

Yeah for sure. So the main change that I've seen when it comes to training and assessment and the assessment practices which is Division 2 under Quality, area 1, is the testing of your assessment tools. So they've added that within the clauses that you are testing those. Now that could be another name for validation, but the way. My recommendation is your trainers and assessors should be testing the tool by completing the tool themselves, so that they get a better understanding of how the assessment, how they can deliver the training to meet the assessment. By completing the assessment themselves, they're going to have a good understanding of what are the requirements within that assessment tool and be able to better prepare their students. Now, whilst you're testing that tool, you should be really looking at is it valid? Is it reliable? So looking at the rules of evidence and principles assessment, but it's also really identifying is this suitable for your learner cohort? Does it meet the learner cohort needs? Is it easy to understand? Is it easy to read? Is there clear instructions for the student? Are there clear instructions for the assessor? So if you were to get a new assessor join your team, would they be able to read that assessment tool and easily follow the steps in there in how to conduct that assessment. So it is as I said, there's not a lot that has changed within this standard, but it has been a constant frustration in many, many audits that I've seen throughout my whole lifetime as a consultant, as an RTO, whereby a lot of the non-compliances are around assessment tools, which then trigger non-compliances within your training and assessment strategy and then can also trigger non-compliances when it comes to trainers and assessors. So we need to get those assessment tools right from the very beginning and validation is the best way to do that. But that testing side, I think it is very much getting your trainers and assessors to complete those assessment tools so that they get a much deeper understanding of how to apply those.

Speaker 2: 23:47

Now the other area, as I mentioned earlier, is what we were noticing in the last couple of years, by this year, was there was a move away from auditors ASQA auditors looking into assessment validation. But we've now seen this year there's been a big shift back to the auditors looking at whether you have conducted assessment validation and the evidence that supports that. In particular, what changes did you make post assessment validation? What was the? And then very much so bringing in that risk management is how have you minimised risk of non-compliance and incorrectly assessing a student as competent when you haven't got sufficient evidence to demonstrate that they are actually competent. So once again, that comes back to testing the tool, but validating the tool against the unit of competencies and the assessment criteria.

Speaker 2: 24:52

Now we have another change that is still on the horizon, that hasn't hit the shores yet, and that's the whole Australian qualifications framework which is going to change. We're going to be moving away from a qualification basis that we are now to a level basis. So instead of having a certificate one, two, three, four in set fields, we'll have levels and those levels will be more like micro-credentialing. So where you're looking at a cluster of units or a full skill set, where you're clustering those units to meet in industry needs, and that's where we really need to be validating assessment tools at a unit level to really identify how is it not only meeting the requirements of the training product but, more importantly, the industry sector and your learner cohort. They're the areas that are often the non-compliant areas. They haven't been validated against the user, so the students and the industry, and how is it applicable to the industry? So they're the major changes that I've seen and that testing of the tools.

Speaker 1: 26:26

Yeah, and I think a critical factor when you know if your RTO has limited resources, the standards make it really clear that you need to focus on high-risk areas first in terms of validating your assessment tools. So things like if you've got courses with high volume of enrolments, obviously those courses are higher risk. If there's issues with those assessment tools, any, any units or qualifications where you've got poor student outcomes, and also any obviously industry critical high risk qualifications, things like early early years learning, aged care and obviously a lot of the industries which have safety risks or hazards related to them. So, bringing it all back to governance because we're going to keep talking about governance from here on in, aren't we, angela? Your risk management strategy needs to identify those units and qualifications within your scope and ensure that they are top of your list in terms of validation of your assessment tools, to ensure that you're taking a risk management approach to governance within your RTO and particularly in the area of assessment practice. And then, obviously, yeah, making sure you maintain that validation schedule, which is pretty critical in terms of ensuring 50% of your products training products are validated in the first three years.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Some people aren't aware, just a point of note. A training product, like, for instance, a qualification to assess. Sorry, validate that qualification. You only need to validate two units. There's a misconception that you have to validate the entire qualification. You only need to validate two units within that qualification to have met the requirements under the standards for having validated that product. The only exception to that. And, by the way of you, you look like you're freaking out Angela no, I disagree with that, sorry.

Speaker 1: 28:39

I've actually I've actually validated this with a square. That's why I'm mentioning it.

Speaker 2: 28:44

I can share it with you.

Speaker 1: 28:49

I've got it in writing. So the only exception that they made to that was in a high-risk qualification, where it may be expected that you validate a greater percentage of the units within that qualification. So, yeah, I've definitely validated that, because I had the question myself. Really, do I have to validate everything on scope scope because that's huge if you've got a massive scope. So that's an interesting point that I only recently learnt, so I thought I'd share that with you. So let's talk about governance, because to me, governance is the number one biggest change within the standards, and obviously this is part of the big shift towards self-assurance and putting the onus back on executive management of the RTO to ensure that they've got adequate governance policies, procedures and systems and processes in place. Angela, what are some of the changes in governance that you've seen in the standards?

Speaker 2: 29:54

Okay, so this is the biggest area. There's been some massive changes when it comes to governance. We were talking about this earlier. As I said, I've been in the training industry for over 30 years, so I've experienced a roller coaster ride of changes when it comes to the training sector, and what I've seen with the new standards is there's very much a shift back towards the old standards that we have the framework, that we have the training framework that we used to have Prior to when we moved over to a national regulator. So when we were under state-based regulator, we had one of the requirements was Having a continuous improvement register and a risk register. Now, we never took away as part of our Documentation our suite of documentation. We never took away as part of our documentation our suite of documentation. We never took away the continuous improvement, because we identified that as a core component of managing your ongoing compliance and we kept that under standard 2.2. But now, with the new standards, it's very much focused on that risk management what, how, what type of risk management systems do you have in place and how are you managing those risks?

Speaker 2: 31:16

And when it comes to leadership and accountability, under the new standards it is who is accountable for the compliance requirements, not just the compliance across the RTO. We've actually changed all of our documentation. So in the footer of every single document that we provide our clients, it has an accountable person. So, whether that's the trainer and assessor, the CEO, the compliance manager, the marketing manager, we have adapted an accountability role within for each document, but also for each area, and then that maps over to our risk register. So we have a risk register and in there it would be who is accountable for this. So accountable is meaning that it's within their position description of what they are accountable for when it comes to the standards, but also they're accountable if something goes wrong. So if they are, for example, if you're the marketing manager, you need to comply with the requirements under information, so under quality area one and two. Quality area two, which is the information that you're providing, but quality area one is making sure that you are aligning your marketing to what's included within your training and assessment strategy. So that gives you an example of two quality areas that the marketing manager needs to be responsible for when it comes to marketing your materials and ensuring that it complies with the requirements of the NRT logo and the AQF logo as well. So that's just a.

Speaker 2: 32:58

I've given you a sort of a snapshot of one area that's not trainer and assessor based, so it's really looking at, okay, your leadership team, who is accountable for what, and then what are their requirements when it comes to the compliance requirements, and that should sit within the position description of that role. We've rewritten all of our position descriptions. We've got over 30 position descriptions now because we've got a lot of RTOs with different size and scopes of operations and within that we've identified different clauses that would be relevant for those different roles. And that's what I would recommend everybody do within your position descriptions. It should include in there what are the relevant clauses that this role is accountable for.

Speaker 2: 33:49

If the role is a training compliance officer and their role is data management, then that should come under a vet miss reporting and also under quality area four with your record keeping.

Speaker 2: 34:02

So how are they maintaining the record keeping?

Speaker 2: 34:05

So you should be mapping what clauses they are responsible for within the position descriptions.

Speaker 2: 34:11

The other thing that we've done a major update to is mapping it all to the award for the post-secondary, which comes under the vet sector award, and making sure that the positions are compliant against that award as well as the contracts are compliant against that award, and then I was just having a look at some other things. So there's a few things that you'll need to have in place a continuous improvement register and a process for that, and that's where you give students, admin staff, trainers and assessors and other stakeholders being industry a opportunity to provide feedback and opportunity for improvement, and then that should go into your continuous improvement register. You'll need to have a risk register, so where you're rating risks from what is the likelihood, how likely is this going to happen and what would the impact be on your RTO if it were to occur? So you need to look at potential risks as well as what are risks that you currently have within your RTO, and those risks should be based on your learner cohort.

Speaker 1: 35:38

Sorry, angela. Yeah, I'd add into that in that register should be evidence of the controls that you have put in place to mitigate that risk. And that's super important because it's the evidence stuff that when ASQA comes to do your next performance assessment, that's the stuff they want to see, not just that you put it in a register, but that you've taken necessary steps to mitigate those risks and you could, you've got evidence of having put those controls in place and reviewing those controls regularly to ensure they're still effective yeah, I've also seen a couple of questions in the chat, and Paul put one in about how many hours do you recommend for both VET and industry currency.

Speaker 2: 36:27

This is risk management as well. You need to be able to manage that risk, and there is. Although the standards don't state that you need to have a certain amount of hours, it is your responsibility as an RTO to have a professional development point process within your RTO that aligns with your learner cohort as well as with the training products that you are delivering. And if you've got high-risk training products, there should be more PD that is undertaken, and this is really going to be determined by you as an RTO and that's where you need to undertake a risk management of that. So you need to, and this was just a great example of how we could implement.

Speaker 2: 37:09

Risk management is okay. How many hours should we require our trainers and assessors and admin staff to complete in the vet and the industry sector? Let's take into consideration what training products we're delivering and the students our learner cohort, who are the learner cohort and who is the industry, and then you should identify some sort of process, a policy and procedure on how are you going to manage that and have a professional development point system in place wonderful thanks.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Yeah, so, and then at the very top of all of that, I guess, when you, if we sit back up at the top of the RTO ladder, executive management need to have adequate oversight over all of that. So regular meetings to review these risk management strategies, regular meetings and meeting minutes. So evidence of those meetings to ensure there's review of that continuous improvement register. It can't be a static document that sits off to the side that nobody looks at. You have to have the evidence of executive management being engaged in the governance of your organisation and taking necessary steps where it's required to obviously step in and mitigate and take action to mitigate risks within the organisation. So the focus really is on the management and executive team within NERTO to have those governance processes, policies, policies, procedures in place yeah, it's no longer.

Speaker 2: 38:48

You can palm that off to someone else. As senior management, you need to have a good understanding of the compliance requirements. The number of times where we've taken on a potential new client and they haven't even read the standards and they don't actually know what are the requirements because they're the CEO, that's no longer. You can't do that. You need to have a good understanding and everyone within your RTO needs to undertake that professional development to ensure that they understand the requirements of the standards.

Speaker 1: 39:24

Yep, awesome. Okay, so I'll just touch a little bit more on continuous improvement because that's had a, you know, further strengthening under the standards and we touched on it on the previous slide. But some things to consider there in the new standards. The previous standards used to talk about stakeholder engagement. It was fairly vague who those stakeholders should be and what sort of engagement. That's all been very, very well clarified under the new standards.

Speaker 1: 39:58

Recommend that you ensure that you've got in place and have evidence of is how you collect, collate and analyze data and feedback from multiple sources, and some of those sources should include complaints, your complaints and appeals logs. So if you don't have a complaints and appeals register where you collect, collate and act on all of your complaints and complaints and appeals, I definitely recommend you need to have that in place and have a process again that governance process for management to be reviewing that and adding any risks from there into your risk register and into any improvements into your continuous improvement register. Everything has to flow through from the data source through to your continuous improvement and risk management strategies and be reviewed by your governance. That's really what you're going to hear from us, I guess, when we talk about a lot of these things in governance. You need to be ensuring that you've got processes to collect, collate and analyze feedback from your students, from your staff, so you know trainers and what their students say about their training employers. So if you work with employers, you should be getting feedback from employers and industry and ensuring that all of that information is fed back into your industry, like from employees. I would recommend having an industry engagement register and ensuring all of that information from employers goes into that industry engagement register and then is used and then you can show how you've taken that information from industry, adapted your learning and assessment strategies or your training and assessment strategies.

Speaker 1: 41:46

Keep a log of that in your continuous improvement register so you can show the flow through from collecting, collating, analyzing and implementing those changes within your organization. And ideally you know when you update any documents you update the version and you say what the change was in your version control history and you point it back to that industry engagement that you made with industry. You have to connect the dots. It's no longer okay just to say you do it, when ASCO has made it really clear under these new standards that you've got to have the evidence. So having that trail is is more critical than ever, I think, in terms of the strengthening of government governance. If you go through that governance standard and those practice guides they make, asquam makes it really clear what they want to see when they come for the next performance assessment. Um yeah, any other uh, uh uh points around governance that you've got to share?

Speaker 2: 42:45

Oh yeah, there's some major changes. So just what we've identified that needs to change. So we used to have separate registers. We've now created one spreadsheet that has all of the registers together and then managing that data. So opportunity for improvement, whs, complaints and appeals, fit and proper person, industry consultation, third parties so managing your third parties. Materials, so your resources, materials and equipment, your professional development register, your credit transfer register, your RPL register. So there's a lot of different registers now that we'll need to have in place and they should all be tied to a risk management and quality control. So how we've done it and I'm not sure whether I didn't get permission for this beforehand I'd like to show my spreadsheet of how I've created that if anybody's interested in having a look.

Speaker 1: 43:50

Have you got screen share? Yep, yep, go for it. We'd love to see.

Speaker 2: 43:58

Okay, so basically this is what we've put together. So we've got. So this is the opportunities for improvement. So you have a registered number, the date that it goes in, who's completed it, and then we have pull-down menus so you can say what position it is, that they're in, the type of opportunity. So we've also got pull-down menus for those, if I can get them to work. So we've also got pull down menus for those, if I can get them to work.

Speaker 2: 44:25

And then the type of so description of that who's was it stakeholder feedback that you received and then giving it the mechanisms of that data that you collected. So how did you collect that data? Where did it come from? What is the root cause? Then, going along to actions that are going to be taken, what priority level? So high, medium or low? The source of the opportunity for improvement, any corrective actions, who is it assigned to? Monitoring and evaluation, effectiveness and actions, and then completion, and then completion and then, as I said, for all of these registers, we've then got a risk management and quality control. So where it was identified. So then that would tie into your full risk management process and how are you ensuring that you are managing and mitigating those risks. So it's not just recording it, it's what are you doing to complete each of those, and so we've covered that for each area. So work, health and safety, complaints and appeals.

Speaker 2: 45:32

New one fit and proper person you need to have a register in place of everyone who has completed a fit and proper person form and then the evidence that supports that. So what type of evidence have you provided, or has that person provided, to support that? So, whether it is a driver's license or a record of them being part of a committee or in within a role somewhere. Then we've got our industry consultation. So a register for that and what training product that relates to. Then your third parties. So who's involved within your third parties? When was the last time the contract was updated? And then making sure that you're uploading that document as well.

Speaker 2: 46:18

And then professional development register, for it can be just trainers and assessors, but it can also be for all of your staff. So it's looking at it could be an advisory board member, it could be a career advisor, it could be a lead assessor. So we've got a range of different roles that that could be. When the PD was undertaken, they categorize that PD. So was it under training and assessment. What is it under vet PD that they completed that, the mode of delivery, also when, when it was delivered, the duration, and this is where. So I had that question from Paul with regards to PD points, this is where you can identify what would be suitable PD points for that type of professional development that was undertaken and then making sure you've got evidence and then, of course, risk managing that. So that just gives you an idea.

Speaker 1: 47:20

That performance sorry. Professional development register. I think is really important evidence now under the new standards. So one of the big changes in the governance requirements under the new standards is you know, in the old days, pre-2025 standards, onus was really on trainers and assessors to maintain their professional development. There was very little talk about professional development across all staff and there was no real onus on RTOs to maintain professional development. So often vet staff are having to bill for professional development themselves and take actions themselves to maintain their professional development. So that's really changed.

Speaker 1: 48:06

Under the standards. The onus is now on the RTO to ensure that they provide their staff opportunities for professional development. So if you haven't got a professional development schedule and a register to you know to prove that you've had your staff undertake that and a register to prove that you've had your staff undertake that, again, it also ties into the governance requirements that require RTOs to I've just lost my train of thought compliance culture. So there's a requirement under the standards for the RTO to show that they have a culture of compliance and obviously that professional development is really critical to show evidence that your RTO has a culture of compliance by upgrading, ensuring your staff are doing professional development in that area and have the necessary skills to work within the vet sector.

Speaker 2: 49:07

I've got a question here from Sarah what software are you using to log all this information? Now, one thing that we really identified is this is going to be too hard to manage through spreadsheets. As you can see, that spreadsheet that I created has a lot of information in there. So we've actually created a new system called comply hub, where it's basically all those spreadsheets into an app and basically what you can do is you have a risk register, so you've got your dashboard where you can see quite easily what is compliant, what is non-compliant, but it's also got your risk management, so it's managing those risks within your risk register. It's also got a fit and proper person register so you can ensure that you've kept all of your fit and proper person forms are all being updated and you've got all the relevant data within one system as well. You can also put all your policies, procedures, forms and documents into here and then map it against the relevant standards, so the quality area as well as the division.

Speaker 2: 50:11

So we just noticed when we were creating all of the new documents under the new standards, we actually realised there's a lot of work here when it comes to spreadsheets, and we knew that a lot of our clients were going to find that too overwhelming and a lot of work to do, so I thought, well, what can I do to make it easier for you?

Speaker 2: 50:32

So this one is all automated and it has like a continuous improvement register. It has the risk management. There are a few other systems that are out there as well. I've seen a few others that are out there, but the way we've written this is based on my 30 years of experience of doing the risk registers through a spreadsheet and then putting it into software and making it easier. And then the other thing that we've done is we've also included our RTO compliance bot so you can have a consultant 24-7 that can answer any of your questions. It's basically me as cloned as a bot, where you can ask any compliance questions and it will answer those questions within the bot. We found that this is the only way that you're going to be able to manage that ongoing compliance without having all of these different spreadsheets and then trying to make sure that everyone on your team is meeting the compliance requirements as well.

Speaker 1: 51:29

Yeah, I don't think you can really manage your compliance, risk and governance strategy with spreadsheets anymore. I actually think spreadsheets have a lot of responsibility. I don't know if the spreadsheets are responsible, but the problem with spreadsheets is people feel like they're doing stuff, but you know things are going out of date, things are becoming not current. No one knows about it. No one's checking the spreadsheets. Similar to, and Angela and I are really passionate about the stuff, as you can probably tell, and eSkilled obviously is one of the first sort of student management systems to really take compliance seriously and provide support for RTOs in that space too. For those of you that are eSkilled clients, you already know that we have complaints, appeals registers, compliance document registers, training and assessor matrix registers, industry engagement registers. We've just done a big overhaul to implement all of that into our automations process.

Speaker 1: 52:40

One of the things is even with the registers within an application, the key is that someone's notified of something goes is becoming not gone, gone into non compliance, but it's, it's ready for review or or it needs review.

Speaker 1: 52:54

For instance, if a trainer currency is running out, you want to know six to eight weeks before that happens, not not on the day when someone remembers to have a look so ensuring you've got systematic processes in place to notify and ping the right people, whether it's a task or an email or like comply hub. There, where you've got that visual representation, you can log in and see if anything's glowing red or flashing red. So you know that you've got to take some action. And it's got to be easy because otherwise, if anything's glowing red or flashing red, so you know that you've got to take some action. And it's got to be easy because otherwise, if it's not, things just fall under the radar and yeah, the the same. Uh, things are going to continue in the vet sector and I think we need to move forward, um, together with compliance as a focus, I think it's-.

Speaker 2: 53:41

And we wanna make compliance easy.

Speaker 1: 53:43

Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's gotta be-.

Speaker 2: 53:46

Shouldn't be so complicated.

Speaker 1: 53:49

It's gotta be easy, otherwise, yeah, things just don't get done. So, yeah, we're passionate about that and yeah, we're just wary of time, so we might pass the pass it over to you guys for some more questions. Angela's been answering some as we went, so thanks, angela. Will, can you read us off some questions that you've noted along the way? Oh, you've got no audio, I think it's answered a lot in there.

Speaker 2: 54:22

Yeah, go Will.

Speaker 3: 54:25

Is it true that the TA40110 at Merlingwood needs the two units upgrade under the new standards?

Speaker 2: 54:32

No. So under the new requirements, this is in the effort of trying to get more trainers to come back who decided they didn't want to do the upgrade. However, they do need to demonstrate professional development in the VET sector.

Speaker 3: 54:49

That's good. Are contract trainers under the new standards considered as third parties?

Speaker 2: 54:56

This all depends on whether they're delivering training and assessment under your scope of registration or are they delivering training and assessment for your RTO. So when I say under your scope of registration, they're marketing and selling the courses on their own. If you've got a contract trainer who is contracted just to deliver the training and assessment, no, they're not a third party.

Speaker 1: 55:21

MR BENTLEY SCARLETT CARLEY's got her hand up for a question. Carley, did you want to ask your question?

Speaker 2: 55:27

MS LIVINGSTONE, it's gone down again.

Speaker 1: 55:30

MR BENTLEY SCARLETT. Oh, it's gone.

Speaker 3: 55:31

Maybe that was the phantom hand, mr BENTLEY SCARLETT. I'll go to some of the new ones. How are nominal hours affected or interpreted in new standards?

Speaker 2: 55:47

So watch this space. This is all going to fall under the new qualifications framework, but what we're seeing at audit is nominal hours is still what ASQA are using when it comes to looking at the hours that you're putting into your training and assessment strategy, and those nominal hours should include your training and applying those skills. On a number of occasions, the assessing the tasks that they're doing in their own time, so it could be assessments or tasks that you're doing at home. It also includes work placements, so if they're undergoing work placement dependent on the training product, so we are still using the nominal hours and that's what I would recommend that RTOs do and watch this space, because it will be changing under the new qualifications framework. Woohoo.

Speaker 2: 56:39

More changes.

Speaker 3: 56:40

Yeah, james is asking for clarification between nominal hours or volume of learning.

Speaker 2: 56:47

Okay. So there's been a big change, a shift away from volume of learning so it's more the amount of training. So what we've seen in audit is it's not that focus on volume of learning, it's the amount of training. So what we've seen in audit is it's not that focus on volume of learning, it's the amount of times that you are allowing the students to apply the skills on a number of occasions. So that's what amount of training means is how many? How often are they getting the opportunity to apply those skills? So it's not just learning it. For example, I'll give a hospitality example. They haven't just learnt how to cook a souffle and then they're assessed. It is how many times have they cooked that souffle before they are assessed?

Speaker 1: 57:33

All about their practice, yep.

Speaker 2: 57:36

Yeah and yes more about their practice applying the skills. Got lots of questions now.

Speaker 3: 57:42

Lots of questions coming up. Is there a timeline for the AQF changes?

Speaker 2: 57:50

Four years ago it was five years, but I think, because of the delay with these standards, it's also been a delay with the AQF.

Speaker 2: 57:59

The first version of what we've seen is micro-credentialing and the government funding that was provided under micro-credentialing. So what I'm recommending is build more micro-credential courses, and what that means is putting together units of competencies that meet an industry sector requirements. And the best way I can explain the changes with the Australian Qualifications Framework is where we deliver security licensing. It is different in each state across Australia, but we have one national qualification that does not meet the different state requirements or different industry sector requirements when it comes to security licensing. So the way the new Australian Qualifications Framework will work is you'll be putting together a training product that will include the units of competencies that are relevant for your state and your licensing body, for example, with the security licensing, will be meeting that regulatory requirement and the units of competencies that they require. So you're contextualizing a qualification that is going to meet that industry need, and that's what I recommend that we should start doing now.

Speaker 1: 59:16

One little thing that I thought I should share with you, which I think is quite notable under quality area 2, is that under the new standards you know, obviously most RTOs have some form of LLN assessment currently in place. Under the new standards as of July 1, you need to have a language, literacy, numeracy and digital skills assessment in place from july 1. So if you haven't already got that done, that's something that you probably want to get on to straight away. Um, the escrow wants to know that the students have the digital skills capacity to be able to undertake the course within your organization to the level of what's required in the qualification or unit that they're studying. So the level is really going to be determined by whatever course they're undertaking.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

What is notable is that the shift is also gone from completing that on enrollment to prior to enrolment. So that's really notable because I know a lot of RTOs are obviously enrolling students into their courses and then getting them to do their LN assessment and away they go. That assessment needs to happen prior to enrolment, so they shouldn't officially not be enrolled in your student management system until they've undertaken that L&D assessment and have met the entry-level requirements for that course and you can be sure that they're not going to have any issues. Obviously, on top of that, you need to have your support, your L&D support strategies in place to, I guess, assist learners that don't have the necessary skills immediately. Obviously, you're going to be able to have to determine whether you can support that student or whether you obviously need to refer them to other support services to improve their L&D skills prior to enrolment.

Speaker 1: 1:01:18

And I think we've just run out of time. Sorry guys, for anyone that has to run, it's been a great session, lots to say, but anyway, that's something to think about. It's quite an onerous requirement. So we might wrap up there, because I know a lot of you might have to-.

Speaker 2: 1:01:33

I'll just quickly add there, because we've got a question around it as well. When it comes to LLND, don't rush out and go buy software to assess that digital skills. It really depends on your training products and what are the requirements of the training products and whether that student will be required to use digital skills in the workplace or as part of the assessment, and then determine what type of digital skills you may need to add within your assessment prior to the enrolment. Yep.

Speaker 1: 1:02:07

So, yeah, we're going to wrap up, guys. I hope you've got some value out of this session. Just some quick things. So, if you need assistance, obviously Angela's shared a lot of her knowledge with us. So if you need assistance, obviously Angela's shared a lot of her knowledge with us. So thanks, angela. And obviously Vivacity have a myriad of tools and support services that they can help you with in terms of preparing for the standards. So you know, feel free to reach out to Angela if you need any assistance in the lead-up. You know, feel free to reach out to Angela if you need any assistance in the lead up. Eskilled if you haven't seen eSkilled's RTO management software before, we have a lot of the systems already in place to manage a lot of this compliance stuff that we've been talking about today. Sorry about that. My team's just called. I think I've got it that my team's just called.

Speaker 1: 1:03:05

I think I've got um. So, yeah, look, we've got a um. Yeah, a bunch of uh, you know, automations and applications that can just make the stuff easy. It's got to be easy. And if you're an existing client and you're not over that stuff, uh, please reach out to our support team because they can help you, point you in the right direction in terms of getting properly set up for the standards and making sure you've got all those registers underway and being built and filled out, if, obviously, angela's also got some incredible tools in that area. So, yeah, there's our websites. I promised at the beginning that Angela was offering a free readiness checklist, so if you scan the, qr code.

Speaker 1: 1:03:41

That's right I gave it over to you, didn't I? That was a bit naughty and I didn't get it back. Um, so let's try again. Sorry, I'm in that zone of sharing my screen and you haven't seen a thing. So, yeah, angela has a QR code here that she's kindly shared with us, which will allow you to get that readiness checklist and just do a quick assessment, make sure that you're prepped and ready to go. So feel free to scan that. We'll also follow this up with an email with a recording of this, if you want to check back or share it with any of your staff, and Angela will probably share that link on an email after this for those that had to bail out early and didn't get to see the QR code. So if you weren't able to scan it or it's not working for you right now, don't worry, we'll send that to you in an email.

Speaker 2: 1:04:39

I've got a link in the chat as well, so you can just go to that link in the chat, and then I've also got my email address in there if you have any further questions that we weren't able to answer.

Speaker 1: 1:04:51

And I think that's a wrap. Guys, we probably could have talked for hours. As you can tell, there's lots to talk about. As you can tell, there's lots to talk about. I hope you've got some value out of the session. I want to say a big thank you to Angela for taking some time out of her day to share her valuable knowledge with us. Feel free to reach out to her if you need further assistance, and we'll be running more of these sessions. If you want to like us or follow us on LinkedIn, we'll be somewhere along here. I have a QR code, but we'll share it with you. Our LinkedIn there it is LinkedIn profile with you and email as well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:29

These talks will be running for the next three months. We were sort of jumping into different areas of compliance with different vet experts and having them share their amazing expertise, as Angela has done with us today. So thanks everyone for attending. Sorry for taking you a little bit over time and I do hope that you got some value out of the session today. There's a survey at the end if you do have time. I know I'm pushing my luck, but we'd love to get your feedback and what you thought of the session and whether there's anything that we could have done to improve the session for you guys going forward. So thanks everyone for your time today.

Speaker 2: 1:06:06

Thank you very much, Scott, for having me as your first guest. Thank you very much, everyone. I look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Speaker 1: 1:06:13

Thanks everyone, thank you everyone, thank you everyone.

Speaker 3: 1:06:15

Thank you everyone, thank you everyone. Thank you everyone, thank you everyone.