School Community Safety Orders

Varying and revoking orders

While both ongoing and immediate school community safety orders (orders) can be revoked, only ongoing orders can be varied. This is because immediate orders have limited scope and operation – they can only prohibit a person from entering or remaining on any school-related place of the relevant school, and last for a maximum of 14 days.

Varying ongoing orders

Authorised persons can vary an ongoing order of their own motion or in response to a request from someone who an ongoing order applies to.

A variation to an ongoing order can:

• vary or revoke current conditions or exceptions
• impose new conditions
• create new exceptions
• make an ongoing order more practical, for example, to enable the parent to undertake school drop off and pick up
• make adjustments to better meet the needs of a student, parent or school without undermining safety, for example:
  • where a parent would like to attend a school performance
  • where the authorised person becomes aware of additional vulnerabilities of or impacts on the person the order applies to
• respond to positive actions or improvements to behaviours.

Variations that must not be made

It is not permitted to vary an order to:

• reflect change of enrolment – ongoing orders must not prospectively cover any school that a parent might enrol their child into
• add names of other people the order applies to – each ongoing order can only apply to one person
• extend to the duration of an ongoing order to beyond 12 months – if an ongoing order is needed for a longer period than 12 months, a new order must be made
• correct inaccurate or erroneous information in the order – if an ongoing order is based on erroneous or incorrect information, it must be revoked.

Where a variation is not permitted, a new ongoing order should be made.

Procedure for varying ongoing orders

The authorised person should contact Legal Division on 03 9637 3146 or email legal.services@education.vic.gov.au for assistance with varying an order on eduSafe Plus.

The authorised person must follow the same procedural steps in issuing an ongoing order (refer to Procedures for issuing orders) if they:

• vary an ongoing order in a way that is unfavourable to the person the order applies to
• decline a request to vary the order from the person it applies to.

In circumstances where an ongoing order is varied in a way that favours the person the order applies to, the usual steps required when initially making an ongoing order don’t need to take place. The authorised person does, however, need to provide a written copy of the varied order to the person the order applies to.

If the ongoing order that is varied applies to a person who is a parent of a student enrolled at the school, the authorised person may need to update the communication and access protocol and promptly advise the parent of the protocol after the variation is given to the parent.

Revoking ongoing orders

An authorised person can revoke an ongoing order at any time by updating the eduSafe report. For more information on reporting on eduSafe Plus, refer to Reporting an order.

The revocation of an order needs to be communicated to the person the order applies to either verbally or in writing. If an immediate order is revoked orally, the authorised person must follow up with a written notice confirming the revocation.

Examples of when an ongoing order may be revoked include where the person the order applies to:

• has undertaken any actions specified in the order to address their behaviour
• has complied with the order, demonstrated that they understand the consequences of their previous conduct and have taken steps to ensure that that conduct will not be repeated in the future
• no longer has reason or cause to interact with the staff member subject to the past inappropriate conduct.

Revocation linked to actions specified in the order

An order may include actions that, if met, can lead to the revocation of the order. Where a person an order applies to has undertaken an action specified in the order to address the behaviour that led to the order being made, the authorised person is not necessarily bound to revoke the order. There would, however, need to be very persuasive reasons to continue the order where the person has proved that they have taken reasonable actions specified in the order.

If the person the subject of an order does not meet a condition included in the order, including one linked to revocation, this cannot result in a penalty or consequence other than the order continuing to be enforced.

For more information, contact Legal Division on 03 9637 3146 or email legal.services@education.vic.gov.au