How long providers get to meet an audit notice.

Summary

• Of the 2,865 compliance notices in the register, 2,683 mention an audit. Every one of them is a mid-term audit (1,601) or a condition audit (1,082). None falls into another group.
• We could read a deadline date from 2,212 of the 2,683 (82.4%). That is below the 90% we would want before treating the figures as a full picture, so everything below describes those 2,212 notices only.
• The first deadline, to engage an approved quality auditor, falls 15 to 25 days after the notice date in 2,211 of the 2,212 notices we could read. The most common gap is 21 days (1,174 notices). One notice gives 107 days.
• 1,968 notices also set a second deadline, to give the Commission the completed audit report. It falls 89 to 102 days after the notice date in 1,967 of them. The most common gap is 90 days (1,045 notices). One notice gives 184 days.
• 495 of the 2,683 audit notices are still in force at 4 November 2026: 370 mid-term and 125 condition. Every deadline we could read is dated on or before 4 November 2026.

How many notices we could read

We searched the published text of each notice for the words “required by” followed by a date, and treated that date as the deadline to engage an auditor. Where a second “by” date was given for the audit report, we read that too. The day counts run from the register’s “date effective from” to each deadline.

Of the 471 notices where we could not read a date, 310 are condition audit notices that set the deadline relative to another event (an audit to start “three months after service delivery has commenced”). 160 state no deadline date in the text that we could find (this includes one notice with no effective date in the register). Nearly all of the 152 mid-term notices we could not read concern an audit to start within 18 months of registration starting.

The unread notices are not spread evenly. Of the 1,050 audit notices dated 2025, we could read 580. Of the 1,632 dated 2026, we could read all 1,632. So the figures below say more about 2026 notices than 2025 ones.

Days to engage an auditor

The first deadline asks the provider to engage an approved quality auditor to complete the audit. The table shows how many days that deadline falls after the notice date. The median is 21 days for all 2,212 notices.

The same few gaps repeat across hundreds of notices, which suggests the deadlines were set in batches. We have not tested that.

Days to hand in the audit report

1,968 of the 2,212 notices also give a date by which the provider must send the completed audit report to the Commission. The other 244 state only the first deadline, and all are mid-term notices. The median report gap is 90 days. The report date falls 65 to 81 days after the first deadline, with a median of 69 days.

Still in force

We counted a notice as in force if it has no end date, or an end date after 4 November 2026. On that basis 495 of the 2,683 audit notices are in force: 370 mid-term and 125 condition. In force means the notice has not been marked as ended. It does not tell you whether the provider met the deadline.

What this does not tell you

• It does not show whether a provider met a deadline, asked for more time, or was given more time. The register text records the notice as issued.
• We could read a deadline for 82.4% of audit notices. The 471 we could not read may differ from the rest in ways we cannot see.
• Counts are of register entries, not of distinct providers. One provider can appear more than once.
• The notice date used here is the register’s “date effective from”, not necessarily the date of the decision.
• A compliance notice is a requirement to act. It does not mean a breach was proven.
• We classified notices by searching for words and patterns in the text. That method has error, and we checked the counts with a second, separate method.

Source and licence

Source: NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, compliance and enforcement actions register, retrieved 4 November 2026. © Commonwealth of Australia. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 unless stated otherwise (see the Commission’s copyright and disclaimer page). The counts, classifications and commentary on this page are our own analysis of that material, and the Commission has not reviewed or endorsed them.