Audience
Department-wide
Purpose
This policy supports the Department of Education’s (the department) approach to developing effective policies and procedures consistent with the Policy management framework.
Policy statement
The department is committed to developing and implementing policies and procedures that provide current, reliable and trusted information that is easy to access and understand, and meets our legislative obligations and strategic priorities.
Principles
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Principle
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What this means for the department
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Reliability
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- The Policy and Procedure Register (PPR) is the authoritative, central point of truth for operational policies and procedures.
- Policies and procedures support effective decision-making in frontline and corporate areas.
- Content owners and authors are responsible for ensuring content on the PPR is accurate and up-to-date.
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Access and transparency
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- Policies and procedures are publicly available on the PPR for schools, corporate users and the general public.
- The department makes policies and procedures freely available.
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Clarity
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- Policies and procedures have a consistent style and format.
- Content needs to be concise and use plain language.
- Roles, responsibilities and key activities and functions must be clearly articulated and easy to understand.
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Compliance and accountability
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- Legislative compliance, governance, and risk management are supported and enhanced.
- Strategic priorities and government objectives are furthered.
- Information management requirements are met, including copyright, recordkeeping, retention and disposal obligations.
- Content owners are accountable for their content and apply appropriate governance processes to oversee development, review and approval of policies and procedures.
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Requirements
1. Public access to policies and procedures
Section 20 of the
Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld) requires the department to make policy documents available to the public. To meet this obligation, all operational policies and procedures must be published on the PPR, which is the central source of truth for departmental policy instruments.
2. Staff and others must comply with policies and procedures
The department’s Policy management framework defines different types of policy instruments. Under the framework, policies and procedures are mandatory instruments for the department, which means that staff and others (e.g. contractors, volunteers etc) must comply with these documents.
Policies and procedures are often supplemented by supporting information (e.g. guidelines, forms, factsheets, or template letters). As these documents only provide additional guidance and support to help interpret and adhere to policies and procedures, compliance with supporting information is not mandatory under the framework.
To enable staff compliance, content authors and owners need to ensure that mandatory requirements are clearly outlined in policies and/or procedures, rather than supporting documents.
3.Policy and procedure management approach
Policy and procedure management within the department needs to align with the Policy management framework, this policy, and the Policy and procedure development and improvement cycle procedure.
Under this approach, authors prepare or update content by applying the development and improvement cycle. Authors draft content in the approved departmental policy or procedure templates, conduct appropriate consultation (including with the PPR team), and use the Publication approval schedule to identify the appropriate approver. The content will then be published on the PPR and authors advise relevant stakeholders.
Policies and procedures need to be periodically reviewed by business areas. Policies must be reviewed at least every five years, while procedures have a three-year review date. To update the review date, the development and improvement cycle needs to be applied. Content owners are responsible for ensuring their policies and procedures remain current.
The PPR team oversees policy and procedure management for the department. This includes:
- administering the PPR website and Policy management framework
- coordinating the department’s consolidated external consultation process for policies and procedures
- conducting periodic monitoring, audit and reporting activities for content on the PPR
- providing support and assistance to business areas, including undertaking reviews of content being developed or reviewed.
4. Records management
Section 7 of the
Public Records Acts 2002 (Qld) requires the department to make and keep full and accurate records of its activities in accordance with the Queensland Government Chief Information Office Records governance policy. To meet this obligation, the PPR team manages and maintains records of publications on the PPR by following the department’s Information asset and recordkeeping procedure.
Definitions
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Term
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Definition
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Policy instruments
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Departmental policy instruments include policies, procedures, and supporting documents.
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Policy
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A policy:
- provides government direction and purpose
- establishes a clear and concise statement of the department’s intent, actions and position
- may be applicable to whole-of-government or to the department.
Compliance with a policy is mandatory.
Policies must be drafted in the approved departmental policy template and published on the Policy and Procedure Register.
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Procedure
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A procedure:
- provides the ‘how to’ and sets out processes to implement the policy
- identifies responsibilities for individuals or business areas
- cannot override or conflict with policies.
Compliance with a procedure is mandatory.
Procedures must be drafted in the approved departmental procedure template and published on the Policy and Procedure Register.
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Supporting documents
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Supporting documents provide advice and tools to support staff to comply with the department’s policies and procedures.
Examples include, but are not limited to, guidelines, checklists, information sheets, frequently asked questions, forms, notices, sample legal agreements, and sample letters.
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Policy management framework
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Outlines the department’s framework for developing, implementing, communicating, monitoring and reviewing policies and procedures.
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Policy and Procedure Register
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The central source of truth for operational policies and procedures for the department. The PPR is publicly accessible at ppr.qed.qld.gov.au.
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Legislation
Delegations/Authorisations
Other resources
Superseded versions
Previous seven years shown. Minor version updates not included.
2.0 Policy and procedure management policy
1.0 Policy and procedure management policy