22 March 2017

CEO of the Department of Local Government and Communities, Christian Youth Camps WA: Inadequate Supervision (breach of s.165)

In another case of inadequate supervision in Western Australia, on 15 March 2017, the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) made an order which gave effect to the terms of settlement holding that on 12 October 2016 CYC contravened s.165(1), National Law by failing to ensure that all children being educated and cared for by the service were adequately supervised at all times the children were in the care of that service and imposed a total penalty of $13,000 for this and for breaches of s.174(2) (failure to notify of complaint) and r.136(1) (first aid qualifications) plus $1000 for the Department's legal costs.

The full decision and statement of the agreed facts can be found on the SAT website. However, in brief, the case concerned CYC as the operator (approved provider) of CYC Camp Cooloongup. In October 2016 the service's bus collected a number of children from a primary school and took them to the service premises. However, one of the children fell asleep and remained on the bus. The child, who was 4 years old, made their own way off the bus some 25 minutes later and went into the service's auditorium in a distressed state. The service failed to do a headcount or check the bus. However, a headcount was taken later at the service, about 20 minutes after the bus arrived, after which the service initiated a search for the child. As mentioned other serious breaches were also identified, see the SAT order and attached agreed facts for full details.

By way of explanation, in WA rather than prosecute in a court (as is the case with other States and Territories) certain breaches of the National Law may be heard by the State Administrative Tribunal as a disciplinary action under s.188B of the Schedule to the Education and Care Services National Law (WA) Act 2012.

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