VET News

Key Learnings from the VVS

The Virtual VET Summit (VVS) - RTO Management and Compliance was held on the 21-22 November 2017. The two days provided a wide range of wonderful presentations ensuring attendees received the most up to date information, concepts and ideas to put into practice within their RTO. Below the participants who attended in person at the event have provided  a summary of the key points gleaned from each session.

The individual recordings of each session will soon be available for purchase. Watch this space!

Key learnings from VVS sessions

Session: Compliance: A valuable business tool not just something that ‘must be done’

Presenter: Claire Field

• Compliance needs to be integral within the organisational structure
• Compliance personnel need to be suitably qualified - they need to understand compliance principles/legislation
• The Annual Declaration is signed by someone that has overall responsibility of the RTO, it is not a matter of simply signing the declaration. The Standards require this person to know, understand and do, they need to own compliance for the organisation
• Use feedback from students, staff and industry to know exactly how your business is going
• Compliance is not about getting your paperwork right but getting your actions right
• Make your students feel like they want to be at your RTO

Session: PD planning - looking beyond the compliance cycle

Presenter: Carol Hunter

• PD needs to be integral within the business - as a business focus, however individual trainers/assessors need to also take responsibility for their ‘future’
• Better to have trained someone and have them leave than not trained them and have them stay
• PD needs to come from within - self motivation

Session: What are the current trainer/assessor requirements and why are they important

Presenter: John Dwyer

• Trainers/assessors need to be proactive about meeting the updated TAE requirements and ongoing PD requirements
• Trainers/assessors delivering TAE qualifications have specific requirements
• Vocational competence is a combination of knowledge, skill and experience equivalent to the qualification being delivered and assessed at a unit level
• Keep a record of your professional development, keep it simple and update your profile document regularly
• Put a plan in place to make sure all trainers/assessors meet the new trainer credential requirements by 1 April 2019

Session: The Impact of the Student Centred Approach on Internal Audits

Presenter: Carol Hunter

• ASQA’s student centred audit model focuses on the student journey, and providers need to be aware of ‘provider profiling’ and how providers are able to utilise their RTO’s rich data to ascertain their organisation’s ‘risk’ level
• Provider profiling is a combination of:
  • compliance history
  • complaints
  • media reports
  • data reports (Total VET activity, QI data, Annual Declaration)
  • marketing presence
  • other government departments

Session: Three Rs - Recordkeeping, requirements and ramifications

Presenter:  Angela McGregor

• Interesting aspect within Angela’s presentation of the ‘record keeping poll’ results - it appears that a number of providers are not aware of their record keeping obligations
• Know your record keeping obligations can vary for different funding models and various legislations
• Record keeping goes beyond assessment evidence, there are privacy documents, permission to use photos and testimonials

Session: ASQA Update

Presenter: David Garner

• The ‘provider profiling’ model is a very important consideration for RTOs, as it informs ASQA as to the regulatory decisions and approaches it will take on providers
• Although the number of RTOs that have been sanctioned or deregistered has increased, we need to remember that audits are now being directed to high risk RTOs
• The Student Centered Audit approach looks at a student's journey - put yourself in the shoes of your students

Session: Evidence-Based Decision Making in RTOs

Presenter: Jonathan Chew

• Business decisions that providers make need to take into consideration both the ‘hard’ data analysis and the ‘soft’ organisational knowledge
• By using an ‘analysis framework’ providers are better able to make an ‘informed’ decision about future opportunities
• Sometimes you need to ask yourself why you want to know the answer before you can ask the question
• Some sources of information can be:
  • Bureau of statistics
  • NCVER & AVETMISS data reports
  • VocStats
  • Conferences related to you, be particular (networking)
  • IBIS World

Session: The Swiss Cheese Effect

Presenter: John Price

• Providers are able to use the ‘PEEPO’ framework to identify where ‘issues’ may have arisen.  Once the key issue area is identified within the organisation, a solution can be implemented.
• Leaders need to build and maintain a culture of quality and values focusing on compliance
• An organisational chart should be very clear in responsibilities and power
• You can delegate authority; you can’t delegate responsibility
• Encourage high level managers to be involved in audits and reviews

Session: Monitoring the Masses: third party arrangements

Presenter: John Price

• Third party providers can be a ‘risk’ to an RTO’s business and the ‘risk’ needs to be managed accordingly
• The monitoring process should be a collaborative association
• The RTO is responsible for what the third party provider does, however the third parties have an obligation to cooperate with the Regulator also
• Assure quality through the PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act)
• DECIDE in your planning an option to implement (Determine the overall objectives on monitoring your agreements, Examine the options you have for monitoring the agreement, Consider the benefits and limitations of each option, Isolate the option you can ‘live with’, Do it! Don’t just think about it, Evaluate it - did it work?)

Session: Role of the RTO Manager

Presenter: Kerri Buttery

• RTO Managers need to plan for the year ahead
• Ensure executive officers and high managerial staff are vested with sufficient authority to do what they need to do for compliance
• Identify who the stakeholders are in your RTO and who is responsible for what
• Break down the year into manageable chunks and plan the tasks for each quarter

Date posted Nov 30, 2017