What it is
Registration is granted to an entity, but entities are run by people — so the regulator assesses the people. Executive officers, high managerial agents and others in a position to influence the provider must satisfy fit and proper person requirements: declarations about history with regulators, companies, insolvency, criminal matters and previous conduct in the sector.
The purpose is blunt. The VET sector has seen providers collapse with student fees, and phoenixing operators reappear under new names. The fit and proper stage exists to keep the people who did that from doing it again — which means new entrants are assessed with the sector's history in mind, not just their own.
The operating principle is simple: disclosure beats discovery. A declared history with context can be weighed. An undisclosed history that the regulator finds independently poisons the credibility of the entire application, including the parts that were true.
What ASQA wants to see
- Complete, accurate declarations from every person who must make one — including people who influence the provider without holding a formal title.
- Consistency between declarations and public records: ASIC history, past involvement with other providers, regulatory actions.
- Where there is history, evidence of what has changed: time elapsed, remediation, changed circumstances, references.
- An ownership and control picture with nobody standing behind the curtain.
What goes wrong
- The undisclosed matter. A past insolvency, a deregistered company, an association with a failed provider — left off the form and found anyway.
- The silent partner. A person funding or effectively directing the venture who never appears in the application.
- Assuming it is a formality. Treating the declarations as tick-boxes and drafting them carelessly, creating inconsistencies that read as evasion.
- Leaving it late. Discovering a disqualifying issue after months of evidence building, instead of in week one.
Indicative effort
A few days of honest work per person if histories are straightforward; longer where past matters need documents and context assembled. Do it early — findings here can end the project.
Can we help?
Feasibility and scope selection — $2,900
We include a fit-and-proper walkthrough in feasibility: who counts, what must be declared, and how to present a history honestly. What we will not do is help anyone leave something out.