The objective of the audit was to assess whether the Training Accreditation Council can provide assurance that Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) deliver quality training and assessment services.

The audit focused on two lines of inquiry:

• Does the Training Accreditation Council appropriately assess the quality of provider training and assessment?
• Does the Training Accreditation Council take appropriate action when RTOs are assessed as not delivering quality training or assessment services?

Our audit assessed the Council’s regulatory activities against the Essential Conditions and Standards for Initial Registration and the Essential Conditions and Standards for Continuing Registration. These were changed in January 2015 and became the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015.

As part of the audit, we:

• reviewed a sample of 18 of the Council’s RTO checks (including mandatory post-registration checks, compliance monitoring checks, and applications to expand RTO operations), 22 of the Council’s RTO risk assessments, all nine sanctioned RTOs, and other Council records

• assessed how the Council monitors the work of its contracted auditors
• interviewed Council secretariat staff and some of its contracted auditors
• attended a Council check as an observer
• consulted with industry stakeholders.

We did not check the quality of training and assessments delivered by RTOs. Rather we looked at the checks of this done by the Council during 2013 and 2014 using its contract auditors. We also did not audit any other bodies that contribute to or influence training quality.

We conducted the audit in accordance with Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards.