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 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.
Vacation care services that operate for more than four weeks per year are in scope of the National Quality Framework (NQF). Vacation care services that exist on the 1 January 2012 will be taken to hold a provider approval and service approval and need to apply by 30 June 2012 for provider and service approval. The department will be in contact to discuss this transition further. The application fee for provider approval is nil and the department policy approval for service approval is 10% of the total fee, in recognition that these services will transition as existing services. For example, a 50 place service has a $600 application for service approval therefore the fee is $60.
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 co-ordinators 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 coordinator currently employed at the service.
No change for child to staff ratios. The current previous requirements for school age care under the Child Care Act 2002 will apply:
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.
Educators under the age of 18 can be included in the 1:15 ratio however they require supervision.
The approved provider of a centre-based service must ensure that any educator at the service who is under 18 years of age:
All educators who are under 18 years of age must hold or be actively working towards at least a minimum 1 year qualification from the approved list of qualifications for educators working with children over preschool age for Queensland.
No explicit ratio for excursions included in the National Regulations. Rather, services are required to undertake a risk assessment prior to an excursion to identify any risks and how these will be managed and minimised.
The risk assessment must consider:
While an increased educator to child ratio for excursions is not specified in the National Regulations, there is a requirement to adequately supervise children at all times.
A thorough risk assessment should determine whether minimum ratios are sufficient to provide adequate supervision of children while attending an excursion.
If the excursion is a regular excursion (e.g. a weekly visit to the library) and a risk assessment has been conducted in relation to that regular excursion, conducting a further risk assessment is not required unless the circumstances change (e.g. taking a different route).
Where the OSHC service is provided at a school site it is not considered an excursion if children visit another venue within that school site accompanied by an educator. For example, if the children visit the library within the school site, it is not considered an excursion and therefore does not require a risk assessment under section 00-101 or authorisation under section 102 of the National Regulations.
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.
Any service wishing to increase their capacity 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 the 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.
No change. Conditions on existing licences will continue in force on service approvals 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:
Services and educators must continue to keep a range of records similar to the requirements under the Child Care Act 2002. Pages 117 - 118 of the Guide to the National Law and National Regulations lists the records and documents that the approved provider must keep and the timeframes 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)This page was last reviewed on 14 May 2012 at 03:46PM
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