The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner

The Commissioner is the accountable authority for the Commission. This means they are responsible for how the Commission runs. 

[Chapter 5 – Part 3 – Division 2]

The Commissioner is appointed by and reports to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors. The minister can give written, general directions to the Commissioner. This means directions cannot relate to a particular scenario or to a particular registered provider or older person. For example, the minister can’t direct the Commissioner to take regulatory action to deal with a provider who might not be complying with their obligations. Instead, the minister could direct that the Commissioner develop a clear policy for responding to similar situations of non-compliance. The Commissioner must follow these directions.

Responsibilities of the Commissioner

The Commissioner has a range of responsibilities, including administrative duties. But their main functions are grouped into 3 categories:

• Safeguarding
• Engagement and education
• Registering providers.

Safeguarding

The Commissioner’s safeguarding responsibilities involve: 

• upholding older people’s rights
• making sure providers meet their obligations
• helping providers have the knowledge and skills to meet their obligations.

This requires:

• upholding the Statement of Rights, and protecting and enhancing the safety, health, wellbeing and quality of life of older people accessing aged care services. This includes encouraging providers to deliver culturally safe and appropriate, trauma aware and healing informed aged care services.
• protecting continuity of care by monitoring providers’ financial viability and taking steps to prevent non-compliance and minimise financial risks
• promoting continuous improvement, high quality care and confidence and trust in the aged care system
• making sure providers and digital platform operators follow the Act, and taking regulatory action if needed
• making sure responsible persons and aged care workers meet their obligations, and taking regulatory action if needed
• supporting providers to have effective systems set up to manage incidents
• seeking clinical or professional advice when appropriate to support the Commissioner to carry out their duties
• overseeing how providers manage reportable incidents, including building providers’ skills to prevent and deal with these incidents. 

Chapter 1 defines what a reportable incident is. Chapter 3 explains the provider obligations for reportable incidents. The Rules for Chapter 5 set out what the Commissioner must do to respond to reportable incidents.

Engagement and education

Engagement and education are important to build confidence and trust in the aged care system. The Commissioner can give information to providers, older people and their supporters, and the public.

This includes:

• communicating with older people and their supporters, including family and carers, to:
  • learn about their experiences
  • develop best practice for how providers and workers engage with older people
• promoting best practice to providers, responsible persons and aged care workers
• educating providers, responsible persons, aged care workers, operators of aged care digital platforms and older persons and their supporters on:
  • the Statement of Rights
  • the functions of the Commissioner and Complaints Commissioner
  • their obligations under Chapter 3
• building the capability of anyone who interacts with the aged care system to understand and promote the aims of the Act
• analysing and sharing information relating to the Commissioner’s responsibilities as needed.

Registering providers

The Commissioner is responsible for: 

• registering providers
• renewing provider registration
• approving changes to registrations
• suspending or revoking – cancelling – registrations.

Chapter 3 explains these processes in detail.

Positions that support the Commissioner

The Commissioner can appoint Deputy Commissioners to support specific responsibilities. These must be staff members of the Commission. This is in line with recommendations from the Royal Commission and the Capability Review.

The Commissioner must also appoint a Chief Clinical Advisor. This role assists the Commissioner in performing their functions. This may include providing expert clinical advice relevant to the Commissioner’s safeguarding functions or supporting the Commission to adapt to changes in clinical practice in aged care. The Chief Clinical Advisor can also help the Commissioner in delivering education on relevant topics to providers and their workers, older people and the public. The Commissioner is accountable for the use of any clinical advice.

Other functions of the Commissioner

Planning and reporting

[Chapter 5 – Part 3 – Division 6]

The Commissioner must meet certain planning and reporting requirements. 

Under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act), the Commission must have a corporate plan. The Aged Care Act requires that the Commissioner consult with the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, the Complaints Commissioner and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Advisory Council to develop the plan. 

The PGPA Act also requires the Commissioner to give the minister an annual report on the work of the Commission during that year. The Aged Care Act sets out additional information that must be included in this report:

• how the work of the Commission has supported the corporate plan
• an assessment of the Commission’s overall performance
• a summary of activities and outcomes
• details about any regulatory action the Commission has taken
• details about complaints and feedback
• a summary of reportable incidents
• anything else set out in the Rules.

The Rules explain what complaints details have to be included in the annual report, such as: 

• how many complaints have been received, grouped by state or territory and provider category
• the types of complaints and outcomes
• how long the complaints process takes.

The minister may also request a report from the Commissioner on matters relating to their functions.

Setting financial and prudential standards

[Chapter 5 – Part 3 – Division 7]

The Royal Commission called for stronger regulations to make sure providers are financially safe and stable. The Act responds to this by giving the Commissioner power to set financial and prudential standards. These make sure providers have the funds to:

• deliver high quality care in the long term
• meet their financial obligations (including refunding accommodation bonds and refundable deposits).

Under Chapter 3 of the Act, providers must meet these standards. 

The Commissioner must have regard to the Statement of Principles when making the financial and prudential standards and must consult with the department to set the standards. They can make standards for provider:

• liquidity and capital adequacy – making sure they have enough money to continue to provide services during periods of financial distress
• financial record-keeping
• governance systems and strategies
• disclosure and reporting of information that may help the Commissioner to monitor provider viability, compliance and risk
• investments and how they’re managed.

Worker screening

[Chapter 5 – Part 3 – Division 8]

Some minor changes to worker screening will start with the Act. These changes mostly affect people working for Commonwealth Home Support Program and National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care program providers.  

Find out more information about worker screening requirements and changes here: Screening requirements for the aged care workforce.

New worker screening check

A more thorough worker screening check will be introduced in the future. This will align with the NDIS Worker Screening Check, so the check will be recognised in both the disability and aged care sectors. The new worker screening check is expected to commence in 2026.

The Commissioner is responsible for managing the necessary processes for worker screening, including the aged care worker screening database, which will include information about people who have been screened.