The 2025 NQF child safety regulation changes, effective 1 September 2025, increase compliance demands for ECEC providers. In response, RAC Pro enabled a Melbourne-based ECEC to manage all required changes efficiently across multiple centres, simplifying compliance and reducing the administrative burden.
Effective 1 September 2025, the Federal Government’s National Quality Framework (NQF) will introduce enhanced child safety regulations for all early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The following is a summary of key changes, as outlined by ACECQA (1):
- Providers are required to notify regulatory authorities within 24 hours of becoming aware of any allegation, complaint, or incident involving physical or sexual abuse. This represents a change from the previous 7-day reporting window.
- All ECEC environments must be free from vaping substances and devices, expanding upon existing prohibitions on tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.
- Approved providers must implement or update policies and procedures governing digital technologies, including mobile devices, cameras, and online platforms. These policies must outline how technology is used, monitored, and managed to support the safety and well-being of children.
The Problem
The new child safety regulations created a significant administrative burden for one Melbourne-based ECEC with four centres and 110 staff. Essentially, they needed to:
- Change policies to adhere to the NQF requirements;
- Prepare explanatory notes supporting the changes to their existing policies to comply with the new regulations;
- Have resources in-house to cater to the implementation of policies and procedures for the new regulations; and
- Obtain acknowledgement and attestation from certified staff regarding these changes across all centres.
RAC Pro Productivity Software
In August 2025, a meeting was convened between Bilston Group (RAC Pro), and the ECEC. The following considerations regarding the implementation of the RAC Pro software to support the ECEC in satisfying NQF requirements were discussed:
Can Participants view, acknowledge and attest to published policies?
Yes – this is a current function and capability of the system.
Does RAC Pro provide an audit log for those participants who have viewed, acknowledged and attested to the published policies?
Yes – this is a current function and capability of the system.
Can RAC Pro deactivate ECEC employee profiles but maintain a log of the archived employee’s details?
Yes, this is a current function and capability of the system, and we were able to amend the system as a result of our discussion to ensure that only a supervisor can deactivate an employee profile (not the participant themselves, as this could lead to malicious behaviour).
Can a Participant enter their own training?
The ECEC should discourage this as it could lead to deceptive behaviour. An ECEC admin or supervisor could enter and approve participant training. We can employ a specific training template that uploads the details of the training of employees at one time, saving the admin or supervisor time.
Can RAC Pro be used on a tablet?
Yes – this is a current function and capability of the system. Any device that can open a web browser can run RAC Pro.
Can RAC Pro be configured to upload photos?
Yes, the only factor for consideration would be large file storage costs, which would need to be priced to cover the cost over a longer period of time.
Can RAC Pro be used as a Rostering System?
Yes – we have consulted with our Development Team and determined that if the roster system were built such that all the rooms within the centre could be a module within the participant access system, this could be provided sooner and at a cheaper development cost, as the infrastructure already exists
Can RAC Pro run a continuous Incident Register?
Yes – this is a current function and capability of the system.
The Solution
The problems faced by the ECEC have been overcome by the implementation of RAC Pro as described below:
- The RAC Pro Register Module enables staff to log required details of abuse allegations, incidents, or complaints as soon as they arise. Certified users can approve and escalate sensitive data within the 24-hour reporting window, meeting NQF requirements.
- Regarding the ban on vaping, while RAC Pro cannot enforce this standard directly, its ability to adapt its current function to accommodate the upload of JPEG files and to utilise the Register module for rostering has been scoped.
- The RAC Pro Policy Module streamlines policy management by allowing users to draft, review, approve, and distribute internal and published policies across all centres from a central platform. The module assigns different authority levels to users and requires electronic acknowledgement, attestation, or approval from relevant staff before finalising changes. It automatically records audit trails showing who participated, the time of actions, and which centre each action occurred in, ensuring accountability and compliance.
Data Security
RAC Pro is a comprehensive compliance management platform that satisfies the requirements of the childcare and aged care sectors. For example, Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) reports, based on ACQSC reporting requirements and now updated ACECQA child safety regulations, can be managed using the Registers module in RAC Pro as described above. Customers can introduce a new register type and start capturing allegations, incidents, and complaints, ensuring that electronic data is recorded in the cloud for future reference.