Licence downgrades in early childhood education are set to become harder to apply.
The change is driven by a claim that the Ministry of Education relies too heavily on provisional and suspended licences to address non-compliance.
That claim formed the basis of the advice presented to, and accepted by, Cabinet, which was told that the current system penalises services too readily, even for minor breaches.
Recent serious child health and safety incidents in which the Ministry took no licensing action raise a legitimate question: has the regulatory response, at times, been too lenient rather than overly punitive.
To understand the basis for the Ministry for Regulation’s claim of over reliance on provisional licensing, we asked it to provide the evidence underpinning its conclusion. Here’s what the evidence showed…
