Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

That's set out in regulations. The proposed new annual charge covers the cost of delivering six regulatory activities: concern management and resolution; stakeholder communications and engagement; risk assessment of providers; inquiries from providers; business support to TEQSA's regulatory activities; and guidance notes for providers.

For item 1, it's proposed the cost will be divided amongst providers proportional to each provider's size by student enrolments. This is because the more students a provider has the more likely it is that a student will raise an issue or make a complaint for TEQSA to consider. This element costs $269,000 out of the $5.7 million total for all six activities.

For items 2 to 6, TEQSA estimates the cost of delivery is the same regardless of the provider size. For example, risk assessment is a data based process that takes the same effort for a provider that has 20 students as a large university with 40,000 students. This cost, $4.5 million, is therefore proposed to be evenly split across all 186 registered providers as at 2 June 2021. The annual charge will be phased in over three years, commencing on 1 July 2022. From 1 January 2022, 20 per cent of these costs will be recovered, rising to 50 per cent of the costs in 2023 and 100 per cent of cost recovery from 1 January 2024.