From 1 July, more categories of employees are covered by Victoria’s Reportable Conduct Scheme, including?labour hire workers, secondees, directors of companies and individual business owners.

Heads of organisations already have?responsibilities for the workers, volunteers and contractors they employ directly, and these responsibilities will still apply.

The changes mean these responsibilities will extend to more individuals in the workplace, whether they are employed directly or supplied by an external provider.

Changes have been made to the?Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005to expand the definition of an employee for the Reportable Conduct Scheme. The new definition of employee now includes more people who are over the age of 18, whether their work relates to children or not.

The new types of employees covered by the Reportable Conduct Scheme are:

• workers or volunteers provided by labour hire agencies, companies or other providers
• secondees
• individual business owners who employ or engage staff
• directors of companies where the director performs work for the organisation.

Labour hire agencies should discuss the changes and how they will undertake investigations with their labour hire workers and volunteers.

To outline the changes to the scheme, the Commission for Children and Young People have organised introductory webinars on Tuesday 30 July from 11:00am to 12:00pm and Thursday 12 September from 1:00 to 2:00pm. These will help you understand whether the changes apply to you and what processes and contracts you need to have in place to engage workers.

More detailed information about the changes and what you need to do is available on the scheme’s webpage.

You can also read about the changes to the?Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005?on the?Victorian Legislation website.