Existing licensees (licensed prior to 1 January 2012) are declared Approved Providers and licensed services are declared Approved Services from 1 January 2012. An online transition pack was emailed to services in December 2011 and Approved Providers must provide the Department of Education and Training (the Department) with the required information by 10 February 2012. The Department will issue Provider and Service Approvals by 30 June 2012.
Where a licensee has two or more licences at the same address with the same Customer Reference Number (CRN) relating to the National Childcare Accreditation Council system these have been automatically merged.
For other services to be considered for amendment to be combined as a single service they must be located on the same or adjoining land lots. Services should contact the Department if they believe that two or more services which they operate are eligible to be merged into one Service Approval. An amendment form is required and will be available from the Australian Children's Education and Care Authority's 
(ACECQA) website.
If a service holds an approved alternative solution this will continue to apply. The original decision letter issued by the Department will outline any obligations. An Authorised Officer will verify individual licence conditions prior to the Service Approval being issued.
Services with a permanent exemption or operating under a 'Temporary Guideline for flood or cyclone affected areas'
If a service holds a permanent exemption or is operating under a Department approved 'Temporary Guideline for flood or cyclone affected areas' they have until 31 March 2012 to apply for a waiver. The fee will be waived for this application.
A 'responsible person' must be present at all times education and care is being provided. The responsible person could be the Approved Provider, the Nominated Supervisor or a Certified Supervisor placed in day to day charge of a service. One of these persons must be present and identified by the provider as in day to day charge at all times care is being provided. Although this is a new requirement, qualified directors and group leaders in services licensed prior to 1 January 2012 are declared certified supervisors and nominated supervisors.
All applications for Service Approval must nominate a person to be the Nominated Supervisor for the service. The Nominated Supervisor must hold a Supervisor Certificate and consent to be the primary supervisor of day to day operation of the service. The Nominated Supervisor will have primary management and control of a service in the absence of the Approved Provider.
An educational leader must also be designated. The educational leader must be a suitably qualified and experienced educator to lead the development and implementation of educational program in the service. For many services, this may be the director or early childhood teacher currently employed at the service.
Ratios: No change, except for mixed age groups and the ratio for 15 to 24 months.
The educator to child ratios that apply to services from 1 January 2012 do not change, apart from the removal of a specific ratio for mixed age groups. Services that use mixed age groups, including at the start and end of the day when fewer children are present, need to be aware of the requirements in relation to ratios for mixed age groups. Section 123 of the Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 (National Regulations) requires that in a mixed age group the ratio for the youngest child must be maintained for each educator. This replaces previous Regulations which applied a 1:7 ratio for mixed ages.
From 1 January 2012, a ratio of 1:4 applies to children aged 15 to 24 months. However, services that were:
In all other respects, services can continue to operate with the same group sizes and staffing as they do currently, until the ratios change in 2016.
If a service is considering changing the configuration of their service, the minimum staffing requirements are determined by applying the ratios across the service. However they also need to consider the impact of any changes on outcomes for children and the potential impact this may have on their rating against the seven quality areas of the National Quality Standard (NQS). Refer to the Educator to child ratio page for more information.
Qualifications: No changes to key qualifications, except for removal of the requirement to have a Director. New staff engaged at a service continue to have three months to enrol in the approved qualification until 1 January 2014. Whilst the terms director, group leader and assistant are no longer used in the legislation, services can continue to use these staff titles.
| Qualifications | Requirements from 2012 |
| Diploma qualification | First of every two educators required to meet the educator to child ratio must hold an approved diploma level education and care qualification (or be studying towards and hold at least a Certificate III or equivalent). |
| Minimum qualification | All other educators required to meet the educator to child ratio are required to hold a Certificate III level education and care qualification (or be studying towards). |
No change, services must continue to operate in accordance with the age range and capacity in line with their licence conditions until approved to do otherwise. Licence conditions will be transitioned onto service approvals prior to being issued by the Department. The Department is working with services to ensure that Prep children, prior to attending Prep in January 2012, can be accommodated within services wherever possible. The Department will ensure that service approvals when issued reflect this change. School age care services with conditions limiting care to school children will be amended as soon as possible in 2012 to allow them to cater for children over preschool age (i.e. from 1 January 2012 prior to commencing Prep).
Any service wishing to increase their capacity or change the ages of the children being cared for at the service must apply for an amendment. If a service is considering increasing the capacity of their service, it is important to take into account the building certification requirements of their service and the impact of any change on the outcomes for children being educated and cared for at the service. A change in the physical environment needs to comply with the minimum requirements in Part 7 of the National Regulations and provide the outcomes in Quality Area 3 of the National Quality Standard - Physical Environment, but should also support the other areas of the NQS including, for example, Relationships with Children.
If a service had a rest period condition on their licence it will continue to apply until 31 December 2019, unless the service approval is surrendered, cancelled or the condition removed.
Other conditions, including a variation to the maximum capacity for a specified period, will carry over where required under the Education and Care Services National Law 2010 
(National Law).
Under section 172 of the National Law and section 173 of the National Regulations, existing services must continue to display:
)In addition, existing services must display:
As noted above, the Approved Provider has until 10 February 2012 to complete the online transition pack including:
lists the records and documents that the Approved Provider must keep and the timeframes required to be kept.Services should be actively planning for the commencement of the assessment and rating process in mid 2012. This may include:
that are now available on the ACECQA website (in particular the Guide to the National Quality Standard which includes reflective questions for each of the seven Quality Areas)
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© The State of Queensland (Department of Education, Training and Employment) 2011.
