The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) – Australia's VET regulator for Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) – has been attacked for alleged over-spending, non-compliance measures and allowing unqualified auditors to undertake auditing activities.
A whistleblower from Education Issues Australia contacted Campus Review to allege a 40 per cent attrition rate year-on-year for ASQA staff and that the regulator uses auditors with no qualifications to “walk off the street and start shutting down RTOs”.
Whistleblowers within Education Issues Australia also produced a spreadsheet showing that ASQA executives took 116 business flights in the 2018–19 financial year, amounting to an overall travel spend of $144, 627. The group felt such exorbitant travel costs were unnecessary and cruel, considering the trips were allegedly organised to shut down a host of RTOs across the county, strip them of accreditation, and disrupt the livelihoods of many RTO employees.
According to the whistleblower named Louise*, commissioners “were spending less that 12 minutes to consider and approve cancellation of the businesses” while 1800 RTOs in the last few years have received generous seven-year renewals without going through an audit process.
ASQA's 5 executives rewarded themselves with avg. $334,600 salary as they literally set out - catching 116 Business Class flights - to destroy the lives of over 600 Australian businesses owners.
All 5 ASQA executives on a plane every other week. Snouts in the trough #auspol pic.twitter.com/uuEPSKLrdg
— Education Issues Australia (@edissuesaus) January 23, 2020
Education Issues Australia and commentators on social media were scathing of the alleged practices, outraged that ASQA's five executives “rewarded themselves with avg. $334,600 salary as they literally set out - catching 116 Business Class flights - to destroy the lives of over 600 Australian businesses owners”.
Campus Review contacted ASQA about these allegations and received a statement in which a spokesperson said that travel arrangements “are bound by the Renumeration Tribunal. Travel for SES-level staff is covered by the authority’s travel policy, which is consistent with travel policies across the Australian Public Service.
“Senior executives are obliged to travel interstate to discharge their duties, including meetings with state and federal bodies, and other stakeholders.”
ASQA’s spokesperson also rebuked the claim that ASQA has a 40 per cent year-on-year staff attrition rate, saying the claim is “without foundation”. The spokesperson added that allegations ASQA auditors are operating without appropriate qualifications is similarly baseless.
According to the statement, ASQA auditors “are required by the Standards for VET Regulators 2015 to hold suitable qualifications or to demonstrate equivalent competencies”.
These qualifications are:
- TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (or its successor) and
- BSB51607 Diploma of Quality Auditing (or its successor).
No ASQA auditor can conduct an audit without these mandatory qualifications, the spokesperson said.
In relation to funding procedures, ASQA's statement said it "makes no decisions relating to funding and has no authority to do so”.
“Commissioners exercise due diligence in making their regulatory decisions. Such decisions are made only after careful consideration of documents prepared by a range of ASQA staff and are guided by a range of tools used to assess the level of risk involved, including the outcomes of audits where these are conducted.”
ASQA is the regulator for VET RTOs under the federal Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, Michaelia Cash.
- Name changed to protect identity