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When things go wrong in childcare: The ever growing importance of regulatory investigations
The Comtrac Team
Feb 23, 2026
6
Min Read
Three children missing for nearly an hour. ➡️
A child found wandering in traffic. ➡️
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are real cases investigated by early childhood regulators in Australia, and they highlight a simple reality: when systems fail in early childhood services, the consequences can be immediate and serious.
What cases like these consistently reveal is that serious regulatory breaches rarely begin with deliberate misconduct. More often, they begin with small operational failures that were never properly identified, documented, or investigated.
As regulatory scrutiny increases across Australia, the ability to conduct structured and defensible investigations is becoming a core capability for early childhood providers and regulators alike.
A highly regulated sector with high expectations
Early childhood services operate under one of the most closely regulated frameworks in Australia. State regulatory authorities oversee compliance with the National Quality Framework and investigate incidents were children’s safety, health, or wellbeing may be at risk.
Key regulators include:
These agencies investigate serious incidents, complaints, and suspected breaches of legislation. Their responsibilities extend beyond compliance monitoring to include enforcement and prosecution where required.
Investigations may involve:
Interviews with educators and management
Review of supervision arrangements
Analysis of incident reports
Examination of policies and procedures
Collection of documentary evidence
Site inspections
Where early childhood education and care regulatory investigations typically begin
Early childhood regulatory investigations typically examine whether services complied with legislative requirements and whether risks to children were appropriately managed.
Common investigation triggers include:
Serious incidents
Missing children
Supervision failures
Complaints from families
Unsafe environments
Failure to notify regulators
For example, a Queensland provider was fined after three four-year-old children left a service unnoticed and were missing for approximately 45 minutes before being located by a member of the public hundreds of metres away. The investigation identified failures in supervision and risk management.
The emergence of Reportable Conduct Schemes
Reportable Conduct Schemes introduce a different but complementary layer of oversight.
Unlike traditional regulatory investigations, which focus on service compliance, Reportable Conduct Schemes focus on allegations involving staff or volunteers working with children.
In Queensland, the Reportable Conduct Scheme will commence in 2026 and will require organisations to report and investigate allegations involving employees, contractors, and volunteers working with children.
Similar schemes already operate in other jurisdictions and have significantly changed how organisations investigate child-related incidents.
These schemes require organisations to:
Notify the oversight body within strict timeframes
Conduct investigations
Maintain detailed records
Provide findings
Demonstrate risk management actions
This represents a major shift in expectations for early childhood providers. This multi-layered approach significantly increases both oversight and accountability. Learn more about Reportable Conduct Scheme investigations.
The investigation burden is increasing
For early childhood providers, the practical impact is significant.
A serious incident involving a staff member may now require:
Immediate incident notification to the regulator
Notification under the Reportable Conduct Scheme
An internal investigation
Evidence collection
Interviews
Risk assessments
Interim protective actions
Detailed reporting
Each process may have different requirements and timeframes.
Organisations must often demonstrate:
What was known and when
What actions were taken
Why decisions were made
How risks were managed
What improvements were implemented
This requires a level of investigative capability that many providers have not historically needed.
Why investigation capability matters more than ever
As regulatory expectations rise, the quality of investigations is becoming a key indicator of organisational capability.
Both early childhood regulators and Reportable Conduct oversight bodies expect investigations to be:
Structured
Evidence-based
Timely
Well documented
Procedurally fair
Defensible
Poorly conducted investigations create significant risk, including:
Regulatory enforcement
Failed prosecutions
Repeated incidents
Reputational damage
Loss of trust
In many cases, it is not just the incident that regulators examine, but how the organisation investigated and responded.
Rising scrutiny in the early childhood sector
Public expectations of early childhood services have never been higher. Families expect safe environments, strong supervision, and transparent responses when concerns arise. At the same time, incidents in early childhood settings are increasingly attracting public attention, with regulatory actions and prosecutions more frequently making headlines. Media coverage, such as recent reporting by ABC News on enforcement action following a child leaving an after-school care service, reflects growing community scrutiny and reinforces expectations that providers and regulators respond decisively when child safety is at risk.
The Future of Early Childhood Investigations
The combination of early childhood regulatory investigations and initiatives like Reportable Conduct Schemes represents a major evolution in child safety oversight.
Regulators are increasingly focused on:
Evidence-based investigations
Strong documentation
Clear accountability
Systemic risk management
Continuous improvement
This integrated approach creates a more complete picture of child safety risk than either system alone.
For early childhood providers, the message is becoming clear:
Child safety is no longer just about supervision and ratios.
It is about having the capability to identify concerns early, investigate them properly, and demonstrate that risks to children are being actively managed.
Investigations are no longer simply a regulatory requirement. They are becoming one of the most important tools for protecting children.
