Legislative compliance policy

Audience

Department-wide

Purpose

This policy outlines the Department of Education’s (the department) approach to complying with obligations under state and federal law (legislative obligations).

Policy statement

The department is committed to complying with legislative duties and obligations. An agreed legislative compliance approach enables the department to promptly identify issues, manage risk and assure accountability. Effective legislative compliance supports good decision-making, and is driven by a compliance culture with controls across key compliance focus areas.

Legislative compliance is managed in accordance with the Legislative compliance framework (the framework) and this policy.

Principles

Requirements

1. Legislative compliance framework and departmental approach

The department has a range of discrete processes and activities, which outline how particular legislative obligations must be managed by the department and its staff. The framework provides oversight of these processes and activities to ensure effectiveness.

A risk-based approach to legislative compliance has been adopted, which concentrates on compliance focus areas aligned to the department’s enterprise risk areas:

• child and student protection and safety;
• workplace health and safety;
• information security (security of confidential and personal information); and
• fraud and corruption.

Legislative obligations within these compliance focus areas are of significant strategic or operational importance to the department. Consequently, these obligations are prioritised to ensure the processes and controls that support them are robust and effective, and non-compliance reporting pathways are understood, documented and accessible. General legislative obligations are also documented to assist staff and business areas to understand their responsibilities more broadly. Compliance focus areas and general obligations are outlined in the legislative obligations schedule. 

The department’s legislative compliance approach is informed by the Compliance management systems – Guidelines (Australian Standard 19600:2015). The model adopted helps the department and its staff to understand their legislative obligations and when to report non-compliance. By documenting legislative obligations at a departmental level, the framework identifies key risks, assists consistency and supports business areas to improve the rigour and efficacy of controls. Regular analysis of compliance data and the control environment allows the identification of trends and issues, opportunities to build capability and ways to achieve cultural change. The model will be regularly reviewed and refined to ensure continual improvement and a system that is fit-for-purpose.

2. Legislative obligations within and outside the scope of this policy

In scope

The framework encompasses obligations within state and federal legislation. This includes:

• administered legislation managed by the department (e.g. Education (General Provisions) Act 2006 (Qld));
• non-administered legislation that applies to the public sector (e.g. Public Service Act 2008 (Qld)); and
• other legislation that applies to the public sector, but also applies more broadly (e.g. Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)).

Legislative obligations that are in scope for the department’s model are:

• mandatory obligations imposed on the department or its staff; or
• discretionary powers which, if exercised, trigger mandatory obligations for the department or its staff.

Out of scope

Legislative obligations about the department’s role as a regulator are not in scope for the department’s legislative compliance approach, as these obligations are managed in accordance with distinct frameworks and systems. Excluded regulatory functions include:

• regulation of the early childhood sector;
• workplace-related inspection and regulation within Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, the Electrical Safety Office, and the Workers’ Compensation Regulator;
• accreditation functions related to the Non State Schools Accreditation Board, home education, and registered providers of courses or exchange programs for international students.

The department’s legislative compliance approach also does not extend to non-legislative obligations or quasi-legal obligations, such as those derived from common law, contract, codes of practice, or directives. These obligations follow different processes and protocols.

Although certain obligations are out of scope, departmental employees performing those functions must still meet all obligations imposed on them in their capacity as public servants.

3. Meeting legislative obligations and reporting non-compliance

The legislative obligations schedule outlines legislation with associated obligations on the department or its staff. Staff at all levels must comply with obligations relevant to their position and duties. If a departmental policy or procedure states how legislative obligations are to be met or actioned, staff must ensure they comply, as compliance with policies and procedures is mandatory.

If staff identify actual or suspected non-compliance with legislative obligations, this must be reported where required and as soon as practicable. If an established reporting pathway exists for an obligation (e.g. iRefer), non-compliance must be reported through this pathway. If there is no established compliance pathway, or the pathway is unknown, staff should report to their principal, supervisor or manager, who must promptly action the report and mange any impacts arising from the non-compliance. The legislative obligations schedule outlines where non-compliance should be reported for compliance focus areas only.

4. Compliance processes, controls and managing non-compliance

Business areas with compliance oversight must ensure documented processes exist to enable staff and the department to meet their legislative obligations. For obligations within compliance focus areas, business areas must ensure:

• a policy and/or procedure is in place that explains how the obligation or groups of obligations are discharged, what constitutes non-compliance, and how non-compliance is to be reported and actioned;
• other controls are in place and are regularly reviewed and maintained for effectiveness; and
• instances of non-compliance are reviewed to understand why it occurred and to adjust systems, processes and controls to avoid repetition.

5. Monitoring and review

To provide visibility and oversight of compliance trends, issues and opportunities for improvement across the department, Strategy and Performance Branch will request data about compliance focus areas from the relevant business area to facilitate a report on trends and issues to Strategic Governance Committees, the Audit and Risk Management Committee, and the Executive Management Board. The report will inform activities, such as risk management, policy and procedure review, and strategic and operational planning.

Strategy and Performance Branch oversees the department’s legislative compliance framework and approach. This includes:

• maintaining the legislative obligations schedule;
• analysing trends and issues;
• coordinating capability self-assessment processes and conducting capability reviews and monitoring; and
• supporting business units to strengthen their compliance processes and controls.

Internal audits will also be conducted periodically to examine the effectiveness of the compliance management framework and approach, or its components.

Definitions

Legislation

• Legislative obligations schedule 
• Public Service Act 2008 (Qld) ss 26, 98-9

Delegations/Authorisations

• Nil

Other resources

• Enterprise risk management policy
• Enterprise risk management framework 
• Enterprise risk management procedure  
• AS ISO 19600:2015 – Compliance management systems – Guidelines

Superseded versions

Previous seven years shown. Minor version updates not included.

1.0 Legislative compliance policy