Information for Policy Owners, Authors and Officers.

Department of Education and Training staff responsible for the development of policies should ensure that all policies and procedural statements are stored in the new Our Policies website.  Uploading of documents to the website can only be completed by the Strategic Policy and Planning Branch after the correct approval process.  For further information about the process please contact the Strategic Policy and Planning Branch as listed below.

New Policies

All policies have been converted to the new policy template to ensure uniformity and consistency.  New policies must use the new policy template.  Please contact the Strategic Policy and Planning branch as listed below.

Revised Policies

All policies have been converted to the new policy template to ensure uniformity and consistency.  To revise a policy you need to access the Word version from the Our Policies website and save it to a file.

Create Links

To replace or create a link to Our Policies use this URL: www.policies.det.wa.edu.au.  It is better to link to the website and not to a specific policy.  For further advice on how to create a link from other websites please contact the Department’s web coordinator.

Strategic Policy and Planning Contact

Ai-Ling Truong 9264 8953 Petal.Hudson@det.wa.edu.au

Bianca McKinney 9264 4047 Bianca.McKinney@det.wa.edu.au

At last, all of our policies are in one place!

Our Policies comprises all the Department of Education and Training’s policies, procedures and guidelines that govern and support the day-to-day operations of our schools and supports the decision making of all staff.  This includes staff in schools, district offices, Central Office and the Training sector.

The system also contains: Acts; Regulations; Industrial Agreements and Awards; and policy related material such as strategic plans, presentations and information and reference forms.

Access to this information is important to those in the Training sector as well as school administrators, teaching and non-teaching staff, and parents/guardians of students attending public schools.

More importantly, all citizens of Western Australia will have an interest in how our Department is administered.

Important information for Department staff

• Our Policies is an integrated system for the definitive online repository of policies and key departmental documents (including Industrial Awards and Agreements and Strategic Plans). The system has replaced the Regulatory Framework System and also includes relevant policies from the Training Group (within the Department of Education and Training).
• Department of Education and Training staff responsible for the development of policies should ensure that all policies and procedural statements are stored in the new Our Policies Web system.
• All policy and procedural statements contained in the Our Policies system are lawful orders for the purposes of Section 80(a) of the Public Sector Management Act 1994 (WA) and are therefore to be observed by all Department of Education and Training employees.

Available Documents

Documents contained in the Our Policies system may be divided into two categories:

Documents containing mandatory instructions

Documents in this category include the Acts, Regulations, Industrial Awards and Agreements relevant to the operations of the Department, as well as the Department's own Policies, Procedures, Director General's Instructions and Delegations. It is important for users to note that, for ease of access, the Department's mandatory documents may also contain non-mandatory suggestions clearly labelled as 'guidelines'.

'Miscellaneous' documents containing non-mandatory instructions

Documents in this category include information useful for implementing and understanding documents containing mandatory instructions.

Searching Documents

On the home page you will access information about documents that are:

New Additions

A list of new policies and other strategic documents.

Revised

A list of revised policies and other strategic documents.

Frequently Accessed

A list of frequently accessed policies and other strategic documents.

Removed

Information about removed policies and other strategic documents.

             In addition, there is an enhanced search function that allows you to search on:

Keywords

Enter the title of the policy or enter keywords about the policy

Themes

Select a theme from a list and relevant documents are displayed.

Audience

Select an audience from a list and relevant documents are displayed.

Document Types

Select the document type from a list and relevant documents are displayed.

A-Z

There is an alphabetical list of all documents available. Select the character of the first word of the title.

Viewing Documents

When viewing documents you will have the choice to view a summary which will include:

• Title
• Description
• Effective Date
• Related Items
• Download a PDF version (if available)
• Download a MS Word version (if available)

Downloading Documents

Minimum System Requirements

The minimum system requirements to open the MS Word document vary depending on the the location of the computer on which you are working.

Earlier versions of MS Windows, MS Word or both may cause unpredictable results.

The minimum system requirements to open the Adobe PDF document is Adobe Reader v6.0. You can download a free copy from the Summary page of any policy.

Printing Documents

When you print a policy document you will see the following text at the top left hand corner of each page:

uncontrolled when printed

The electronic version of the policy in the Our Policies system is the official document.  This phrase is part of managing authenticity, quality and version of policy documents.  More importantly, this phrase means that after you have printed off this document and need to refer to it at a later date, you must check the currency of the document online, otherwise it is not guaranteed that you are accessing the current policy.

About the Our Policies Project

Departmental policies relating to schools were previously available online through the Regulatory Framework System. In addition, schools also accessed policy documents through CDs that were distributed to schools on a quarterly basis. As a consequence of the Department's Web Strategy, the technical platform for the Regulatory Framework needed to be upgraded. A review of the system also indicated a need to enhance the accessibility, usability and reliability of online policy information.

In addition, policies relating to the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector were in a variety of locations and formats (Internet, Intranet, HTML, PDF, hard copy). The merger between the former Departments of Training and Education, and the consequent reorganisation of structures and websites (Intranet/Internet), has made it difficult to find VET policies and identify their status and ownership.

In 2004, work commenced on the development of a new web application called “Our Policies”.  The objective of the project was to develop a definitive online repository for all Departmental policies and other key documents including Industrial Agreements and Awards and Strategic Plans.