Organizational Recordkeeping Analysis Of Victorian Registration And Qualification Authority (VRQA)

Mission and Core Business of VRQA

Question:

Discuss about the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority.

The report is a discussion on the organizational recordkeeping analysis of Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority (VRQA) for identification of the challenges and problems. Thus, in order to do this, there is a discussion of the mission and core business of the organization, its structure and its core functions. The regulatory environment, the accountability framework and discussion on the organizations governing its recordkeeping, business and archival practice discussed. The report also gives an overview on the relationship that VRQA holds with its regulatory organizations. There is discussion on the main stakeholders and the accountability issues that arises due to the intervention of the stakeholder. The report also describes about the culture of the organization and the accountability issues related to it. The risk associated with the recordkeeping of the organization analyzed. Another part in the report deals with providing recommendations on the recordkeeping system requirements. Here, the primary recommendations are on providing a framework for organizational recordkeeping. There are also recommendations on the main features of the recordkeeping policy of an organization and the policies that relates to its access and appraisal. The report also provides recommendations on record preservation and archiving strategy. There is also as a selection of record keeping tools that includes encoding schemes, metadata schemes and disposal instruments. Technology options for supporting the recordkeeping also discussed. Further, the report also gives an overview of the ongoing evaluation and monitoring.

The organization discussed here is the Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority (VRQA). This organization is a statutory authority that is responsible for providing quality information not only to the employers of trainee and apprentices but also providers of training and education including qualified course owners (Gurr, Drysdale & Walkley, 2012). The organization came into play for monitoring and regulating not only school and higher education but also vocational training and education. Moreover, this organization also registers providers of education and thereby monitors them for ensuring compliance with the Education and Training Reform Act 2006. The main role of the organization lies in assuring the public that provider of education not only complies with minimum standards established under the state but also Commonwealth legislation. Moreover, they also make sure that qualifications awarded by them meet a certain standard that is recognizable by other employers or providers.

The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) ensure registration of certain training and education providers and awarding bodies. The organization also registers qualifications and ensures accreditation of courses (Bowman & McKenna, 2016). Further, they also enable registration of children for home schooling in Victoria and ensure regulation of traineeship and apprenticeships in Victoria.

Core Functions of VRQA

The core functions of the Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority (VRQA) helps in (Heslop, Power & Cranwell, 2014): 

1. Ensures registration of Vocational Education and Training (VET) that helps in delivering accredited training to the domestic students not only in Victoria but also Western Australia
2. Helps in providing school education
3. Enables providing senior secondary education both in schools and non-school
4. Provides overseas secondary education in student exchange organizations
5. Enables registration of VET qualifications and accreditation of VET courses
6. The organization allows registration of courses of senior secondary delivered by school and non-school
7. The organization also investigates complaints against the registered providers of VRQA.
8. The organization also maintains a record of the registered VRQA training and education providers and the courses and qualifications delivered by them. They also ensure regular publication of information sheets on the training and education provision in Victoria.

The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) hold the responsibility for accreditation and registration arrangements for of all kinds of training and education providers leaving aside the established universities (Acker, 2016). The regulatory environment of this statutory authority based on the contemporary approach of the light touch regulation. Moreover, the regulatory environment remains consistent with the approach of quality assurance of review and monitoring. In addition, the organization takes into account the diversity in ownership, values and provision of Victorian training and education.

In the year, 2010, VRQA took the responsibility of regulating around 2300 schools, 1200 Vocational Education and Training (VET) providers that included technical and commercial colleges and more than 50 private institutions for higher education (Freeman, 2014). The VRQA is also responsible for the regulating around 300 commonwealth-accredited courses for the overseas students.

The Minister of Skills and Workforce Participation introduced legislation in the parliament for strengthening the regulatory framework of VRQA for education providers post secondary schools. This regulation led to the collapsing of several privately operating VET providers (Vrqa.vic.gov.au, 2017). However, the VRQA ensured regulation of the VET providers in accordance with the framework for Australian quality testing of 2007 which are  set of national standards designed for assuring consist quality service in the VET sector.

The Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) must register the vocational education and training (VET) as per the Education and Training Reform Act of 2006, training and educational reform regulations and the ministerial directions (Vrqa.vic.gov.au, 2017). The Act also requires VRQA in registering the VET providers according to the national framework of Australia agreed by every territory and state. The framework however includes essential standards required for registration, standards for course accrediting bodies and state registration and excellent criteria.

Further, under the act, VRQA subjected for publishing accurate and meaningful information on VET providers. This is required for enhancing the confidence of the students in the quality of education of the providers. Thus, the information put forward by VRQA must ensure sufficient transparency in generate the confidence of the students. There was an audit for reviewing VRQA’s decision-making at the initial registration, the 12-month and the re-registration stages and decision of the VRQA in considering whether a VET provider is good enough for operation (Audit.vic.gov.au (2017). Moreover, it is also necessary for the organization to access the financial viability of the VET providers before they are registered.

Regulatory Environment and Accountability Framework

The business, recordkeeping and archiving practice of Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) is taken care by the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS) formed by the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) for preserving the data of the government agencies of Victoria (Walter, 2016). This strategy helps in not only managing complete, documented and digital records but also preserve them.

However, just by fulfilling the criteria for registration there is exist no guarantee for compliance. The national guidelines for the management of risk mentioned in the Australian Quality Training Framework 2007 puts forward an explanation in defining the risk based approach that should be adopted by VRQA in monitoring VET providers (Audit.vic.gov.au (2017). However, as per the guidelines, the higher the risk of the provider in not meeting the standards of the framework, the greater should be the regulator’s effort in monitoring the performance. Thus, as per the guidelines the regulator must assess the risk rating of provider based on history of the audit compliance, data derived from quality indicators and the complaint history. In this regard, VRQA ensured that the providers did not include quality indicators until the year 2010 and therefore there was discrepancy in data collection from VET providers for using them in rating their risk.

The stakeholders of Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) are as follows (Vrqa.vic.gov.au, 2017)

1. Training and education providers that included schools
2. Students as well as their parents
3. Trainees, employees and their apprentices
4. Owners of the school system
5. Employers of group training
6. Industry associations, peak bodies and unions

The VRQA also included those as stakeholders who work with them in trying to achieve their regulatory outcome. This includes:

1. Review bodies of Schools
2. Audit Panels
3. The traineeship and apprenticeships of the regulatory field service provider
4. Agencies of the government and other regulators

The effective engagement of the stakeholders helps in improving the regulation of Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) and helping in achieving the regulatory objectives (Vrqa.vic.gov.au, 2017).The engagement of the stakeholders helps in providing deeper insight about the organization, environment and industry. There are also instances when the stakeholders help in providing valuable information about not only the consumers of education and training but also the organization and the extent to which they are faring in the industry that helps VRQA to act on the information provided. Moreover, the stakeholders can also overview the performance of VRQA and provide necessary ideas in case of requirement of any improvement.

The Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) believes in a culture and tries to incorporate it in dealing with everything, right from interaction to dealing with stakeholders and community(Wiewiora et al., 2013). The culture provides an operational focus for the principles set out by the Board in strategic plan of VRQA. They also help in complimenting the Department of Education and Training and reflection of VRQA role as a regulator.

Stakeholders and Accountability Issues

Victorian Registrations and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) believe in respecting others and value the diversity brought to the organization by the individuals. The organization also believes in creating reliability and trust for its entire staff and thereby acting with honesty in dealing with the stakeholders. Moreover, the organization also makes sure that stakeholders have access to information of higher quality regarding the training and education providers and the regulatory process and role of VRQA (Cummings & Worley, 2014). Further, the organization is also committed in developing the staff and enabling them in reaching their potential thereby providing highest quality of information and service to the stakeholders.

1. Student Welfare Risk: In such risk, the welfare of the student comprised since the provider lacks the awareness of the responsibilities of student welfare. Moreover, most of the student welfare policy is not proper, lack details and does have effective implementation (Author, Trainor & Beharrell, 2013). Further, the provider also delivers courses in high-risk industries or overlooks accommodation of home stay.
2. Risk Related to Student Interest: In such a risk, there is no existence of formal process in determining the suitability of the student for the course prior to enrolment. The materials and facilities are not appropriate or sufficient for ensuring effective learning. Sometime the achievement of the student remains below the required benchmarks. There may be times when the progression rate does not fulfill the standard requirement of the provider. Moreover, there may be complaints related to the same topic on a continuous basis.
3. Risk of Governance: The governance structure fails in underpinning the operations of the provider because of limited work experience. There may be lack of business planning documents or existence of documents with weak accountability and ownership. Moreover, there are times when the process of recruitment is not rigorous and the staff development and training lacks focus.
4. Risk of Compliance: There is lack of processes for the providers for recognizing compliance. Moreover, there have been previous audits that lead to identification of areas relating to non-compliance. Further, there has been a significant concern raised by the regulatory bodies related to the providers. In addition, there conditions attached to previous approvals.
5. Risk of Financial Viability: There may be times when the provider’s financial failure can lead to inability in delivery of training and education (Renz, 2016). The risk may be due weak financial ratios and performance. Moreover, there may be fluctuating figures of student enrolment and enrolment figures at a minimum threshold level. Further, there may be high reliance on government funding.

However, effective record keeping of an organization refers to identification of information governance that helps in providing standard information source. This helps the organization in assuring the society and public at large that they are undertaking their responsibilities with care (Penn & Pennix, 2017). Organizations must therefore adopt certain principles for identification of the hallmarks of the information governance that ensures standard conduction of information governance and metrics for judging the conduct of the organization. The fundamental attributes of the principles of information governance applies to every type of industry including both private and public sector. Moreover, these principles are independent of rigid custom and local law so organizations can use them for establishing practice across geographic boundaries.

However, the adoption of such principles for an organization is essential for the following:

1. Executive and Administrator Management in the determination of protecting the organization in using the information assets
2. Professional for Information Management in the design of effective and comprehensive information governance program
3. Helping the Legislators in Crafting legislation for providing assurance in public affairs and business and hold the accountability of the organization in appropriation of standards code of conduct
4. Information workers for performing the activities on an everyday basis

The adoption of the principles helps in creation of a high level of framework for good practice and principles does not enforce the implementation details that include procedures, job descriptions, specific policies and technologies (Scott & Davis 2015).

The organization must adopt a general record keeping policy based on the Information Governance Maturity Model designed based on not only principles and established standards but also best practices and legal and regulatory requirements (William, 2015). Moreover, the adoption of information governance model helps in painting a complete picture of effective information. This model ensures completely restating the principles, defining characteristics of the programs of information governance at different maturity level and at the same time ensures effectiveness and completeness. The model however defines five levels of maturity.

1. The First Level: This level helps in describing an environment where the information governance and concerns for recordkeeping addressed on a minimal or ad hoc basis. Thus, organizations with these problems will not only have to meet regulatory or legal scrutiny and must know that they are not serving the business needs of an organization.
2. The Second Level: This level provides with a description of an environment where information governance plays a prudent role in the recordkeeping thereby benefiting the organization. However, at this level too an organization subjected to scrutiny since its practices might still be incomplete, ill defined, nascent and marginally effective.
3. The Third Level: This is the level that provides a description of the essential or the minimum requirements by the organization in meeting the business, legal and regulatory requirement if the business. Moreover, this level characterized by the defined policies, procedures, and process implementations for improving the recordkeeping and information governance
4. The fourth level: The level describes the organization as having a proactive program for information governance in all its operations where there is scope for constant improvement. Moreover, the issues of information governance have integration into the business decisions. This implies that such an organization has compliance with the good practice and is able to meet the regulatory and legal requirements.
5. The fifth level: This level helps in describing an organization that integrates information governance into its corporate infrastructure and business processes to an extent that there is routine compliance with not only program requirements but also regulatory, legal and other responsibilities. Thus, at this level the organization recognized information governance to play a vital role in cost containment, client service and competitive advantage and has successfully helped in successful implementation of strategies

An Organization can adopt digital preservation of records that involves employing the following strategies (Svärd, 2013):

1. Ensuring documentation of standards and procedures: To ensure this, an organization can use standard based open formats or voluntary community based standards for facilitating future preservation and access.
2. Ensuring Prioritization: An organization can ensure regular access to identify prioritization of technically complex data ensures its preservation.
3. Ensuring Management of File: This will help in minimizing the efforts for normalizing files in the selected formats and retaining the significant characteristics of the original format while the file remains in the low access storage.
4. Ensuring Authenticity: An organization must maintain authenticity in record keeping that refers to the accuracy of the record as a representation of the original.
5. Ensuring Preservation of Metadata: The preservation of the metadata helps the organization in ensuring the required contextual, administrative, descriptive and technical information.
6. Ensuring Maintenance of Organizational Relationships: The organization can engage with the national, international as well as local communities for digital preservation and share experiences and information for seeking guidance and collaboration for addressing the challenges of digital preservation.

The organization can make use of various record keeping tools for ensuring authentic record keeping activities. Primarily the organization can make use of metadata schemes that helps in protecting the fragile data (Packalén & Henttonen, 2016). This scheme provides a basis for understanding and describing the context of the records. The adoption of these schemes can also make records accessible, findable and meaningful. This scheme can however be complex but helps in describing the full range of record processes that includes capture indexing, classification, access, security, archiving and disposal. However, the organization can also adopt encoding schemes and disposal of instruments for ensuring effective recordkeeping of data (Becot et al., 2014).

Culture of VRQA and Accountability Issues

The organization can also adopt certain software for supporting their Recordkeeping activities (Elhai & Frueh, 2016):

1. Intuit QuickBooks Online considered one of the best recordkeeping software available
2. Wave Accounting makes use of cloud computing and is quite effective in data recording
3. The organization can also use software named Bookkeeper that will help it easily managing the records.

An organization can also seek the help of other business information system that includes (Sousa & Oz, 2014):

1. Business systems that help in the creation, restoring and management of information related to business that includes personnel system, finance system and workflow system. 2. Adoption of records management systems and electronic document and records
2. Adopting network drives
3. Adoption of physical management systems
   1. Adoption of common shared systems among the government agencies

The ongoing monitoring of the organization can be based on:

1. Clarification of the program objectives
2. Linking activities and the resources to the objectives
3. Helping in translation of the objectives into set targets and performance indicators
4. Routine collection of the data based on the indicators and comparison of the results with the target
5. Reporting the progress to the managers and alerting them about the problems

The evaluation of the organization should be based on:

1. Analyzing on the fact that the intended results were not achieved
2. Ensure access to specific casual contribution of the activities to the results
3. Examining the process of implementation
4. Exploring the unintended results

Conclusion

The report ends by giving an overview of the ongoing evaluation and monitoring of Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority (VRQA). The report also has a discussion on the technological options available for supporting recordkeeping activities. There is also recommendation on the report keeping tools like metadata scheme, disposal instruments and encoding scheme adopted by a company. The report also gives an overview of recommendations on record preservation and archiving strategy.  There are also recommendations on the main features of the record keeping policy adopted by an organization and discussion of the policy that relates to its appraisal and access. Recommendations about the framework for organizational recordkeeping are also part of the report. The report also discusses about the organizational recordkeeping analysis of Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority (VRQA) and identifies the challenges and problems faced by it. In order to explain this, there is discussion on about the mission, core business, the structure, culture, core functions and stakeholder of the organization. The report also discusses about the accountability framework, regulatory environment and the organizations that governs the recordkeeping of Victorian Registration and Qualification Authority. 

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