Manager, Compliance

State Government of Victoria, Australia; City of Melbourne; On-site; AUD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

The Social Services Regulator in Melbourne leads the worker screening compliance function, setting priorities and guiding a team of regulatory officers to ensure timely, defensible compliance actions.

You will partner with the Intelligence team to align on priorities, deliver guidance, and support the Victorian Government's Child Safety Reform agenda through complex investigations and proportionate regulatory responses.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a regulatory compliance function.
• Experience with worker screening or similar regulatory regimes.
• Strong leadership and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the worker screening compliance function, developing and delivering the compliance plan and programs.
• Oversee a team of Senior Regulatory Officers and Regulatory Officers, allocate work and resources, and monitor performance.
• Manage complex and sensitive investigations and assessments to ensure timely, evidentiary and defensible outcomes.
• Ensure proportionate regulatory responses and escalate high‑impact matters to the Director.

Skills

Regulatory leadership

Compliance management

Team leadership

Intelligence-led

Stakeholder management

Regulatory investigations

Job description

Occupation: Governance and risk management

Location: Melbourne - CBD and Inner Metro suburbs

Reference: VG/00781085

Social Services Regulator

The Social Services Regulator (SSR) is an independent statutory authority that exists to safeguard the rights of children and young people as well as people who use social services in Victoria.

The SSR regulates the Social Services Standards, the Child Safe Standards (for organisations without a sector specific co-regulator as well as the social services sector), and also administers the Worker and Carer Exclusion Scheme (WCES), Reportable Conduct Scheme (RCS) and Working with Children Clearance (WWC Clearance) scheme and NDIS Worker Screening Check.

The Social Services Regulator takes an integrated and intelligence driven approach to identifying, preventing and excluding unsafe people from working with children and young people, as well as ensuring organisations that work with children and young people keep children safe from abuse and harm by meeting the Child Safe Standards.

As a co-regulator of the Child Safe Standards, the Social Services Regulator works with other co‑regulators of the Child Safe Standards including the Department of Health, Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA), Victorian Early Childhood Regulation Authority (VECRA), and Workforce Inspectorate Victoria to keep children safe from harm and abuse.

THE ROLE

The Manager, Compliance leads the Regulator's worker screening compliance function, ensuring that employers and agencies meet their obligations in relation to the engagement of persons in child-related work. The role sets the compliance plan, priorities and programs for the function, leads a team of Senior Regulatory Officers and the Regulatory Officers, oversees complex and sensitive compliance investigations, and ensures that proportionate regulatory responses are progressed in accordance with the Regulator's compliance and enforcement approach.

Reporting to the Director, Worker Screening Intelligence and Compliance, the role also:

• builds and leads a newly established compliance team, setting the practice standards, quality assurance arrangements, procedures and guidance the function operates under, consistent with compliance and enforcement frameworks developed across the SSR; and
• partners with the Manager, Intelligence to set joint tasking and priorities, agree referral, threshold and feedback arrangements, and deliver an intelligence-led approach to compliance activity.

Leading within a multidisciplinary team, the Manager, Compliance contributes to Worker Screening Intelligence and Compliance Branch operations and to the delivery of the Victorian Government's Child Safety Reform agenda.

ACCOUNTABILITIES INCLUDE

• Lead the worker screening compliance function, developing and delivering the compliance plan, priorities and programs of work that give effect to the Regulator's compliance and enforcement approach, and reporting on their delivery and impact.
• Lead, develop and manage a team of Senior Regulatory Officers and, through them, Regulatory Officers, setting expectations, allocating work and resources, managing performance, capability and wellbeing, and building regulatory practice through a period of significant change.
• Oversee complex and sensitive compliance investigations and assessments into suspected non-compliance by employers and agencies with their obligations under the Worker Screening Act 2020 (Vic), ensuring case work meets agreed timeliness, evidentiary and decision quality standards.
• Ensure regulatory responses, including statutory notices, warnings, infringement material and referrals, are proportionate, consistent and defensible, that recommendations for action are well reasoned and properly supported, and that high consequence, precedent-setting or sensitive matters are escalated to the Director.

For more details, please open the position description.

Applicants are required to submit a CV and Cover Letter (max 2 pages) outlining their suitability to the role in line with the Key Selection Criteria.

Applicants must be an Australian Citizen, Permanent Resident or hold a valid work permit or visa. Work eligibility will be checked as part of the recruitment process.

Preferred candidates will be required to complete pre-employment screening, including a national police check and misconduct screening.

For more information on working with us and our recruitment process, please contact SSR HR at [e-mail].

Applications close Sunday 27 September 2026 at 11.59pm