People: trainers, assessors and the Credential Policy

What it is

Training products do not deliver themselves. For every product on your proposed scope, the application must show named people who can train and assess it — with the training and assessment credentials the Standards require, the vocational competencies at least to the level being delivered, current industry skills, and ongoing professional development in both their industry and in training practice itself.

Credential requirements for trainers, assessors and related roles are set out in the Credential Policy that sits under the Standards for RTOs — including, separately, the requirements for people who validate assessment (Section 3 of that policy). The point at application is not abstract compliance; it is that an assessor exists, is named, and their evidence file proves the claim.

Workforce sits inside one of the four Quality Areas of the Outcome Standards, which is a useful reminder: your people are not an input to the application, they are one of the things being assessed.

What ASQA wants to see

• A per-product, per-person matrix: who trains it, who assesses it, and the evidence — credentials sighted, vocational competence mapped, currency demonstrated.
• Realistic loading. One trainer credibly covering two related products is a plan; one trainer covering an entire disparate scope is a red flag.
• Currency that is recent and specific — what this person did in industry lately, not what they did a decade ago.
• Arrangements that are real: employment contracts or signed agreements, not letters of intent from people who have never met the entity.

What goes wrong

• The phantom workforce. “We will recruit once registered.” The application asserts capability now, not intention later.
• The overloaded trainer. One person named against every unit of every product, with a credential file that thins out on inspection.
• Stale currency. Industry experience that ended years ago, offered as evidence of current skills.
• Credential-title inflation. Assuming an old or adjacent credential meets today's Credential Policy without actually mapping it.

Indicative effort

Highly variable — days if your people exist and their evidence is in order; months if you are still recruiting. Portfolio assembly per person is typically 1–2 weeks of back-and-forth.

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