State working with children check screening unit (WWCC unit)
Eight of these, each with its own law, its own standards, its own disqualifying offences and its own card. National consistency was recommended in 2015.
Responsibilities
- Assess applicants against criminal history and disciplinary information
- Issue, refuse, suspend and revoke clearances
- Conduct ongoing monitoring of clearance holders
Recorded generically because the arrangement is the same everywhere and that is the point: the working with children check system in Australia is eight separate state and territory schemes, each with its own laws, standards and processes.
National consistency was recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2015, which stopped short of recommending a single centralised check. Eleven years later the eight schemes remain and a worker still applies in their own jurisdiction.
Progress is real and it is slow. The Agreement to Deliver National Working with Children Check Reform was endorsed by the Standing Council of Attorneys-General in November 2025. By mid-2026 all jurisdictions had agreed a meaningfully consistent approach to disqualifying offences, a framework and benchmarks for risk assessments, and the information types that must be shared within jurisdictions — with agreement in principle on the information types to be shared across jurisdictions, to support mutual recognition. The national criminal history checking capability is reported to be about three years away.
Set that beside what happened next door. The National Early Childhood Worker Register went from ministerial request to mandated national use on 27 February 2026 — the same children, the same ministers, a national register delivered while the clearance that actually gates the work stayed in eight pieces. See The register went national in eighteen months. The clearance has taken eleven years..
Where this body appears in a process
Every point at which State working with children check screening unit can hold something up, and why.
| Process | Step | Why it waits | Clock | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A person is cleared, registered and monitored to work with children in early childhood | Apply for a working with children clearance application | applicant | — | 14 |
| A person is cleared, registered and monitored to work with children in early childhood | Screening assessment assessment | assessment | — | 28 |
| A person is cleared, registered and monitored to work with children in early childhood | Clearance issued certification | assessment | — | 0 |
| A person is cleared, registered and monitored to work with children in early childhood | Work in a second state: apply again application | assessment | — | 42 |
| A student completes the clearances required before a mandatory placement | Working with children clearance certification | assessment | — | 42 |