The Queensland Government has committed to reducing red tape and administrative burden on Queensland state school teachers by 25% over the next 4 years to allow teachers to spend more time with students, focused on teaching and learning.
The Department of Education is responsible for developing and implementing a red tape reduction action plan, steered by a red tape reduction working group and informed by extensive consultation with Queensland state school teachers and leaders.
The red tape reduction program of work will focus on reducing the workload of teachers and educational leaders that arises from administrative, procedural, reporting or compliance obligations. For example:
- eliminating unnecessary processes and requirements
- where these process or requirements are essential, making them as simple, efficient and effective as possible
- ensuring that the right people are performing these tasks (noting that the best person to perform the task may not be a teacher)
- can be generated at the individual, school, region or system level.
Consultation
Teacher and principal voice is essential to ensure that the red tape reduction action plan is targeted towards the administrative issues and challenges that are creating distraction and workload pressures for Queensland state school teachers.
Consultation throughout the beginning of 2025 provided opportunities for teachers (including middle leaders) and principals to contribute towards designing actions to reduce red tape, raise any concerns around the ramifications of change and plan for successful implementation, and contribute towards defining success of the action plan.
Broad and diverse feedback was shared by educators, educational leaders and stakeholders across Queensland in early 2025. The
red tape reduction consultation report presents the findings from the consultation activities and draws on the insights of Queensland educators to establish a baseline understanding of the red tape that is affecting teachers and the impacts on them and their students.
Stakeholders consulted
The following stakeholders were invited to provide feedback through a range of consultative mechanisms between January and April 2025:
- teachers, middle leaders in schools, deputy principals and principals
- peak educational stakeholders (including employee and parent representative)
- regional and central departmental leaders
- all Department of Education employees.
Early actions
During the consultation process, 6 early red tape reduction actions were announced to maintain momentum:
- Introducing a 'one-plan-per-student' approach to student needs management assessments to reduce the burden under the current policy which requires numerous duplicative plans per pupil.
- Simplifying time-consuming procurement processes by reducing the number of quotes required for low value, routine purchases. This will improve efficiency and reduce paperwork, while ensuring value for money is maintained.
- Launching a single point of contact for teacher recruitment to make the process faster, easier and more efficient for principals.
- Releasing a set of consistent state-wide expectations for communication between parents/guardians and their child's school. These will set clear boundaries around acceptable behaviour, preferred forms of communication, and appropriate timelines for responses.
- Supporting departmental senior executives to spend time immersed in schools to ensure they understand first-hand the challenges that schools face and can put this knowledge at the centre of decision making.
- Releasing a small schools support plan, which includes a state-wide selection process for aspiring small school leaders to reduce the administrative burden of continual recruitment processes and improve leadership continuity in small schools.
A draft action plan that responds to the red tape pressures identified through consultation is currently being developed and tested with teachers and school leaders. This plan will be finalised for launch in mid-2025 and implementation from 2025–28.