59. Ongoing information requirements

59.1 - Information you must give to the department

You must provide certain information to the department on an ongoing basis. If you fail to do so, you may be liable for a civil penalty of 60 penalty units. This is an offence of strict liability.

You must give notice to the department if:

• certain events affect your capacity to comply with the Act
• there are changes to your organisation
• any of the other types of events listed below occur.

To give notice to the department, use the online enquiry form on Provider Enquiries and upload any relevant attachments to HITS.

You must give the Secretary:

• information about notifiable events
• other information such as:
• annual financial statements
• copies of notices given to other regulators
• annual reports

59.2 - Notifiable events

Students not wanting fees to be paid with VSL

Some students who have requested a loan for their course may decide to pay upfront for a unit or part of a course.

If a student advises you on or before the census day that they don’t want to use VSL to pay tuition fees for part of a course, you must inform the Secretary as soon as practicable.

You need to do this by reporting the student in TCSI as ‘paid upfront’ for the unit or part of a course in line with the usual reporting requirements, with a zero-loan amount.

Events affecting capacity to comply with the Act

If you or any of your key personnel or your related body corporate experience any event that is likely to affect your capacity to comply with the Act or any instrument made under the Act, you must notify the department.

For example, if one of the key personnel goes bankrupt, this could affect your ability to meet the fit and proper person [part 8.1] requirements.

Changes to provider

You must notify the department in writing as soon as possible if:

• there is a change to your legal name or to the business name you use for delivering VET
• there is a change to your key personnel (give the reason for the change)
• there are planned changes to the ownership of your organisation or your corporate structure
• you undertake any major projects
• you make any major purchases of assets.

Other events

You must give written notice to the department within 24 hours if any of the following events occur:

• your organisation defaults in relation to a student (inform us as soon as possible)
• notice is served on your organisation or proceedings are taken to:
• cancel your organisation’s incorporation or registration under the Corporations Act 2001 or similar legislation or
• dissolve your organisation as a legal entity
• your organisation comes under a form of external administration referred to in subsection 600H(2) of the Corporations Act 2001 or an equivalent arrangement
• your organisation fails to comply with a statutory demand within the meaning of section 459F of the Corporations Act 2001
• your organisation cannot pay all their debts when they become due
• proceedings are initiated for an order for your organisation’s winding up
• at a meeting of the provider, a resolution is made to wind up your organisation.

Note: the department is not required to pay a loan amount to a provider in certain circumstances. This includes where we suspect, on reasonable grounds, that you are not complying with the Act. The types of notifiable events listed above may be grounds for us to form that view.

59.3 - Copies of notices given to other regulators

National VET Regulator

If you give a notice to the National VET Regulator under section 25 of the NVR Act, you must give the department a copy of the notice at the same time.

Commissioner of Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission

If you give a notice to the Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission under section 65-5 of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012, you must give the department a copy of it at the same time. When you provide this notice to us, you should state what it relates to.

59.4 - Annual reporting

You must give the following information to the Secretary each year:

• information about the links your organisation has with industry and other bodies
• information about any ‘third party arrangements’, whether approved or not, your organisation has with a third party to deliver all or part of an approved course
• a report on the results of your organisation’s last annual assessment of student satisfaction in relation to each of its courses made
• any other information determined by the Secretary.

The Secretary may determine different information that must be given by different approved course providers.

Providing your annual reporting

You will be notified by email (or other appropriate means) of the date by which the information is required to be provided.

Your annual reports should be uploaded to HITS. You must place the annual report in your Document List under Compliance Requirements.

Legislation: Act s 52(4–5)], s 20, s 15(1)(b), Rules s 107, s 109–111, s 114 (1–2), s 116(1), s 34 (2), s 3