All approved education and care services must comply with the requirements of the Education and Care Services National Law (WA) Act 2012 and the subsequent national regulations. All licensed child care services must comply with the requirement of the Child Care Services Act 2007 and the relevant Regulations. The Acts and Regulations aim to protect and promote the best interests of children who receive child care services.
The Department for Communities will not knowingly allow the wellbeing of children attending an education and care service or licensed child care service to be compromised and seeks to:
- protect children from harm or continuing harm
- stop unlawful conduct
- ensure compliance with the law
- raise awareness of legislative requirement by publishing enforcement actions and using other compliance tools to deter and punish serious offences.
The Education and Care Regulatory Unit (the Regulatory Unit) is committed to ensuring that all services are informed of their compliance roles and responsibilities, while provided with appropriate support. This is detailed in the Compliance and Enforcement Framework.
There will always be services that are willing and able to comply, those that attempt to comply but are not able to, and those services that choose not to comply.
If a service is found to be non-compliant with the legislation, a risk assessment will be undertaken to determine whether the non-compliance exposed a child to serious risk of harm. The assessment will also consider whether the continued provision of the service constitutes an unacceptable risk to the safety, health and wellbeing of the children attending the service.
All actions by the Regulatory Unit will be based on such an assessment, with high risk non-compliance resulting in the most serious action (for more details refer to the Compliance and Enforcement Framework).
The details of serious non-compliance will be regularly updated on this website, and will remain published for two years. See Enforcement Actions under Related Resources at top right corner of this page
We encourage all parents to seek information about child care options in WA. Always contact the the Regulatory Unit or a local Children's Services Officer if you have any concerns about a service.