Victoria’s Reportable Conduct Scheme was introduced in July 2017. The primary objective of the scheme is to make organisations safer for children. The scheme aims to improve organisations’ responses to allegations of child abuse and misconduct, or ‘reportable conduct’ by its employees, including volunteers. It requires organisations to respond to allegations of reportable conduct made against their employees and to report those allegations to the Victorian Commission for Children and Young People.

This review has examined the operation of the scheme since it came into effect in July 2017 to understand if it is working as intended. In preparing this review, the Department has considered relevant data sources, invited submissions and conducted targeted engagement with stakeholders, including with organisations subject to the scheme, regulators, peak bodies and key government agencies.

The review found that the scheme is largely operating as intended. Organisations are notifying the Commission about, and then investigating, many allegations of reportable conduct. The Commission has conducted a substantial amount of work in educating organisations about their obligations and has overseen more than 10,800 individual allegations of reportable conduct.