What is a Compliance Review?
A compliance review allows the Department to assess an organisation’s performance against a set of criteria to help us get a picture of how well your business is operating in comparison to national standards and contractual obligations. It also helps to identify areas of strength and weakness to assist your organisation to improve its business outcomes. The focus of compliance reviews is to ensure that the agency is delivering best possible community housing outcomes to the community.
When is a Compliance Review carried out?
A compliance review may be triggered by a number of events, including:
- As a scheduled three year compliance review*
- As a scheduled 3 year registration renewal*
- As a result of issues raised from the annual reporting and accountability returns of an organisation or from the registration assessment process.
- When an organisation has been referred to the Regulation and Compliance Unit.
What is the Traffic Light Assesment System?
The Traffic Light Assessment system ranks an organisation against a set of criteria and performance standards to determine whether the organisation meets the requirements of their registration status or, for non-registered providers, their contractual obligations. Organisations undergoing a compliance review will receive a performance rating depending upon their level of compliance with the standards assessed:
Compliance Rating
| Green |  |
Performing in accordance with required standards. |
| Amber |  |
Performing to a large degree with required standards. Where not performing to standard the organisation may be capable of improving to meet the required standard. In this instance, the Regulation and Compliance Unit will provide the organisation with details of areas that require improvement. The organisation may also be referred to CHCWA, or an alternative intervention strategy may be recommended. The organisation will be provided with a specified timeframe for improvement. |
| Red |  |
Not performing in accordance with required standards where the organisation is not likely to be capable of improving to meet requirements. The Regulation and Compliance Unit may take intervention action. This may involve requiring the organisation to work towards partnering with another larger provider that is performing to standard, or invoking the breach and termination of the legal agreement between the Department and the organisation resulting in recovery of properties, or a number of strategies in between. |
Standards are broad and the measure of performance will be assessed giving consideration to each individual agency’s scale and complexity of operation, the concomitant risks, and the extent to which it has achieved improvement over previous years’ performance against business plans.
What is the Compliance Review Process?
When the Department identifies a need to carry out a compliance, a Review Officer will request authorisation from the Registrar to do so. We will contact you to arrange a review interview. The letter of request will contain a blank review form, a request to view specific properties on the day of the review, and advice of the need to access specific records. At least a month’s notice will be given of the proposed review date, and you will have two weeks to respond should you have any concerns regarding the review date or request for access.
The Review Officer will familiarise him/herself with the organisation’s structure, housing portfolio, target group, legal agreements in place, previous compliance reports or issues, and any other information required to ensure the review is undertaken giving consideration to information on hand.
On the day of the review the Review Officer will interview appropriate staff, or members of the management team of the organisation. The interview will follow the Traffic Light Assessment format appropriate to your organisation (see section on Traffic Light Assessments). The Review Officer will talk to you about areas for improvement or of concern throughout the interview process.
The Review Officer will also inspect a selection of properties, as advised at the time of booking the review interview, and will be accompanied by a member of your organisation’s committee or management team during the process. The Officer will also require the property condition report for each property inspected to assist with internal and external inspections. During the inspection the Officer will point out to you any issues noted and discrepancies between written policies and actual practices or tenants’ knowledge and understanding of the policies.
After the review has been completed the Review Officer will prepare a Compliance Review Report, based on the Traffic Light Assessment and observations from the site visit, and make recommendations based on the report findings. The report is then forwarded to you and you will have four weeks to consider the report and respond in writing. During that period you may wish to liaise with the Review Officer to provide additional evidence or explanation.
During this period the Review Officer will determine whether to amend the report prior to submission to Management for a decision on the performance-rating outcome. Once a decision is made on the performance- rating outcome we will advise you in writing.
For further details on Compliance Review please refer to the Compliance Review Procedure document (in progress).
Appeals and Complaints
A Registration or Compliance Review Appeals Process is available to Providers who are not satisfied with decisions made by the Registrar. Registration or Compliance Review Appeal Procedure.
