Audit-ready in Aged Care: preparing your workforce records
What the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission expects to see in your workforce records, and how to keep that evidence ready at all times.
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Audit anxiety is one of the biggest drivers of compliance effort in Aged Care, and for good reason: under the Aged Care Act 2024, workforce screening is an auditable obligation overseen by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. This guide is about staying ready, so a review is a quick export rather than a scramble.
It complements the provider screening and record-keeping checklist, which covers setting the obligations up. This one is about keeping the evidence audit-ready over time.
What a reviewer wants to see
For each worker and responsible person, be ready to show:
- Current screening status: a National Police Check (Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check) under three years old or NDIS Worker Screening Clearance, in line with the Aged Care workforce screening requirements.
- When it was sighted: dated records of when each check was confirmed.
- Subcontractor and labour-hire coverage: the same evidence for workers you did not directly employ. See subcontractor and labour-hire screening obligations.
- Ban-register checks: evidence you have checked the register of banned workers, before and during employment.
- Seven-year retention: records kept for seven years, including after a worker leaves.
Compliance is current-state
A reviewer is asking whether your workforce meets the requirements now, and whether you kept the records you were required to keep along the way.
Current-state, not reconstructed history
Koora shows compliance status at the time the report runs. It is a current picture, not a reconstructed claim that a worker "was compliant" on some past date. Keep the records as you go, and the current-state view does the rest.
The gaps that catch providers out
Three recurring failure points:
- National Police Checks more than three years old. The three-year clock passes quietly.
- Lapsed CPR. A first aid certificate can be current while its CPR component has expired. See first aid and CPR requirements.
- Missing labour-hire records. Workers supplied by an agency are easy to leave out of the workforce record, even though the obligation still sits with you.
A static spreadsheet tends to hide all three until an auditor, or an incident, exposes them.
From scramble to export
The difference between a stressful audit and a calm one is whether your workforce status is live and exportable. Koora keeps each worker's screening, training and credential expiry on a Career Passport, tracks what is current and what is approaching expiry, and produces a workforce status report on demand. The compliance responsibility remains the provider's; the value is being able to show it in minutes. For the day-to-day system, see worker compliance tracking for providers.
Frequently asked questions
What workforce evidence does an Aged Care reviewer expect?
Current screening status for every worker and responsible person, records of when checks were sighted, coverage of subcontracted and labour-hire workers, and evidence that the register of banned workers has been checked. Records must be retained for seven years.
Does audit-readiness mean reconstructing history?
No. Compliance is a current-state question: it shows whether a worker meets requirements at the time the report runs. You are not expected to reconstruct a point-in-time history, but you are expected to have kept the required records along the way.
What trips providers up most often in an audit?
National Police Checks more than 3 years old, lapsed CPR components, and missing records for labour-hire or subcontracted workers. These are the gaps that a static spreadsheet tends to hide until someone looks.
This is general information, not compliance advice. Always confirm requirements with the relevant regulator, and remember that providers keep the legal responsibility to sight credentials and decide who can work.
We work hard to keep everything accurate, and our compliance engine keeps up with the rules as they change. Even so, we might get a detail slightly wrong or miss something. No one's perfect. If you think something here needs updating, email us at resources@koora.care. We would genuinely rather know, because we all do better when we help each other get it right.
See where your Aged Care team stands.
Run the free workforce audit on the records you already hold, or find your service on Koora and claim it. Your first five workers are free of passport-access charges.
Writing your screening policy? Use the free Aged Care template.