A training provider is approved to originate Commonwealth student debt

Two gates, asking two different questions: is the training any good, and is this organisation fit to put a debt on a student's tax file. Between 2012 and 2016 the second question was, in practice, not asked.

educationOne private registered training organisation seeking approval to offer income-contingent loans to its students skeleton compare across jurisdictions

This is a structural skeleton, not a measured process. The steps, the authorities and the sequence are researched from this jurisdiction's published requirements and are broadly right. The durations are a uniform template applied across all jurisdictions, so the differences between them on the comparison page are mostly an artefact of that template rather than evidence about Australia. Do not quote the day counts. Replacing them with sourced figures for even one jurisdiction would make this page genuinely useful.

780 days elapsed
longest dependent chain

7 discrete steps
across 3 bodies

8% waiting on availability
scheduling or queue, not assessment

0 days saved by concurrency
vs. 780 if run end-to-end

Where the time goes

Critical-path days only. Steps that run alongside others are real work but do not lengthen the process, so counting them here would overstate the prize.

assessment	690d	Someone is genuinely evaluating the merits.
queue	60d	Waiting behind unrelated work in a backlog.
applicant	30d	Waiting on the applicant to supply or fix something.

60 of 780 elapsed days are spent waiting for a person or a meeting rather than for a judgement to be formed. Removing that time changes no assessment standard and lowers no bar -- it is the cost of scheduling alone.

The process, step by step

Applies when: An organisation wants to deliver vocational training and have its students fund the tuition with a Commonwealth loan.

#	Step	Who	Why it waits	Clock	Typical	Basis
1	Registered as a training organisation registration Gate one, asked by the training regulator: can this organisation deliver and assess training to the national standard?	Australian Skills Quality Authority	assessment	—	570 estimate	National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (Cth)
2	Apply to become an approved VET Student Loans provider application A separate application, to a separate body, asking a separate question. Accepted at any time — no window. after Registered as a training organisation 180d slack	Department of Employment and Workplace Relations	applicant	—	30 legislated	VET Student Loans Act 2016 (Cth)
3	Fitness and financial viability assessment assessment Financial viability, fit and proper person tests, student completion rates, and links to industry and employment. after Apply to become an approved VET Student Loans provider 60d slack	Department of Employment and Workplace Relations	assessment	—	120 reported	—
4	Courses confirmed on the approved course list assessment Loans are available only for courses on a determined list, at diploma level and above. after Apply to become an approved VET Student Loans provider 180d slack	Department of Employment and Workplace Relations	assessment	—	0 legislated	—
5	Approved as a VET Student Loans provider decision after Fitness and financial viability assessment, Courses confirmed on the approved course list	Department of Employment and Workplace Relations	queue	—	60 estimate	—
6	Ongoing conditions attach certification Loan caps, census dates, progressive payment, and evidence that the student is actually engaged in the course. after Approved as a VET Student Loans provider	Department of Employment and Workplace Relations	assessment	—	0 legislated	—
7	Provider may originate Commonwealth student debt registration after Ongoing conditions attach	Australian Taxation Office	assessment	—	0 estimate	—

on the critical path scheduling/queue = delay not caused by the assessment itself

Machine-flagged questions

These are produced automatically from the dependency graph. They are questions for a practitioner, not findings. Each one needs a person who has run this process to say whether the constraint is real.

The same body asked more than once

dewr (assessment) appears at Fitness and financial viability assessment, Courses confirmed on the approved course list. Could these be a single sign-off?

Proposed changes

The gate that failed was a gate that did not exist threshold
Under VET FEE-HELP, being a registered training organisation was effectively enough to originate uncapped Commonwealth student debt. Lending went from $25.6 million in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2015, and the taxpayer lost $2.2 billion.
The remedy recovered $228 million, ran for five years, and closed remove ~365d
$1.2 billion of VET FEE-HELP loans issued inappropriately in 2014 and 2015 was estimated unrecoverable. The redress scheme built to reverse that conduct re-credited $227.61 million across 33,383 complaints, and then the window shut.

Sources

VET Student Loans Act 2016 (Cth) and VET Student Loans Rules 2016, commencing 1 January 2017, replacing VET FEE-HELP; existing students retained access to VET FEE-HELP until 31 December 2018 under grandfathering provisions
VET Student Loans (Courses and Loan Caps) Determination 2016
ANAO performance audit, Administration of the VET FEE-HELP Scheme
Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth), VET FEE-HELP provisions
Senate Education and Employment References Committee inquiry into private VET providers: misleading and deceptive marketing targeting vulnerable and disadvantaged consumers
National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 (Cth); ASQA registers RTOs against the Standards for Registered Training Organisations

Something wrong here?

This page is wrong in some way -- every page like it is. If you have run this process, the most useful thing you can do is tell us which step took longer than we say and why. Edit data/processes/au-vet-loan-provider-approval.toml and open a pull request, or send us the correction.