EC3 form: tool we use to assess services with regulatory requirements

What is the EC3 form?

The EC3 form is the tool we use to assess that your service is meeting regulatory requirements. It lists all the requirements that you must meet at all times.

The requirements come from the:

  • Education and Training Act 2020
  • Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008
  • licensing criteria.

You must show us that you are meeting these requirements before we are able to give you a licence to operate. You must continue to meet these requirements, at all times, to be able to keep your licence and continue to operate.

When do we use the EC3 form?

We use the EC3 form when we carry out licence assessments at services. During an assessment, we will ask you questions, look at documents, take photos and observe what is happening at your service. We will then record what you tell us, and what we see, on the form. We may ask you to provide us with further information by email.

When we are back in our office, we will assess all the information we have gathered and make a decision.

If we have assessed your service because you have applied for a new licence, and our assessment shows that you are not meeting all the requirements, we will be unable to grant you a licence to operate.

If you already have a licence and we find that you are not meeting all the requirements, we are required to review the status of your licence. This may mean your licence is reclassified to provisional or suspended.

We will inform you of the outcome of our assessment and what is required within a specified timeframe.

How to access the EC3 form

To access the EC3 form for centre-based, home-based, hospital-based, and kōhanga reo services, contact your local Ministry office.

Local Ministry offices

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