Child safety strengthened with funding boost to Office of the Children’s Guardian

Wednesday, 7 January 2026

The Minns Labor Government is strengthening the State’s independent child safety regulator, the Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG), with additional resources to boost compliance, review and enforcement activities.

The OCG will receive an additional $5.5 million over two years to employ new staff, resulting in:

• More compliance audits for early education centres
• More reportable conduct investigations
• More timely risk assessments for Working With Children Check (WWCC) applications
• More enforcement actions under the Child Safe Scheme

This funding boost follows an additional $10 million invested in the OCG’s capacity through the Minns Labor Government landmark $1.2 billion Child Protection Package in this year’s State Budget.

This investment complements the Minns Labor Government’s recent legislative changes to strengthen the WWCC scheme by removing the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) appeals pathway for people who have been denied a WWCC.

Under the new arrangements, all WWCC decisions are now made exclusively by the OCG as the State’s specialist child safety regulator.

The Government’s $5.5 million funding boost will result in significantly increased additional compliance activities.

Minister for Families and Communities Kate Washington said:

"Child safety is an absolute priority for the Minns Labor Government, that’s why we’re investing in more investigations and enforcement - to keep kids safe.

“We are delivering more funding for more staff at the Office of the Children’s Guardian to audit early childhood education centres across NSW to improve child safety compliance.

“The Minns Labor Government is investing in the Office of the Children’s Guardian because it does the critical work of keeping kids safe – it's now more than $10 million a year better off than when we came to government.”

Acting Children’s Guardian Rachael Ward said:

“I welcome this additional investment, backing the critical role of the Office of the Children’s Guardian. Our dedicated staff regulate, monitor and foster child safe practices of organisations and people who work with children.

“This additional funding further bolsters the Office of the Children’s Guardian to do our vitally important work of keeping children safe in NSW and will enable us to undertake increased child safety compliance and enforcement activities.”