The Laws Behind Childcare Cleaning in Victoria: What the Regulations Ask of Your Centre

Ask a centre director which law says the centre must be clean and you will usually get a shrug and "the regulations". That is right, but it is only part of the answer. Cleaning in a Victorian early learning centre sits under at least five sets of rules, and they ask for different things.

This post sets them out in plain terms. It is general information, not legal advice, and the current text of each instrument is the one that counts.

1. The Education and Care Services National Law and Regulations

Long day care, kindergarten and outside school hours care in Victoria run under the national framework, applied here by the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 (Vic). The regulations do not mention cleaners, but several of them describe what cleaners do.

• Regulation 103: premises, furniture and equipment. The approved provider must make sure the premises, and the furniture and equipment used at them, are safe, clean and in good repair. It is consistently one of the most commonly breached regulations around the country.
• Regulation 77: health, hygiene and safe food practices. The nominated supervisor and staff must implement adequate health and hygiene practices and safe practices for handling, preparing and storing food.
• Regulations 106, 109 and 112: laundry, toilet and nappy-change facilities. These set out what the facilities must be. Keeping them hygienic every day is a cleaning job.
• Regulation 168: policies and procedures. The service must have policies on health and safety, including hygiene and the control of infectious disease.

The duty sits with the approved provider. You can hand the work to a contractor, but not the responsibility. If an authorised officer finds a dirty nappy-change bench, the notice is addressed to the centre, not the cleaning company.

2. The National Quality Standard

Assessment and rating looks at practice against the seven quality areas. Two touch cleaning directly:

• Quality Area 2, Children's health and safety. Element 2.1.2 asks whether effective illness and injury management and hygiene practices are promoted and implemented.
• Quality Area 3, Physical environment. Element 3.1.2 asks whether premises, furniture and equipment are safe, clean and well maintained.

We covered what an assessor tends to look at in getting cleaning ready for assessment and rating.

3. Staying Healthy, sixth edition

The NHMRC's Staying Healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services is now in its sixth edition. It is guidance, not legislation, but it is the reference regulators and assessors use when they ask how a centre controls infection. In practice, a cleaning program that departs from it needs a good reason.

Its central point on environmental cleaning hasn't changed: detergent and water does most of the work, and disinfectant is for specific situations, such as body fluid spills and outbreaks. Our post on cleaning versus disinfecting in childcare goes through what that means night to night. If your cleaning policy still cites the fifth edition, update the reference.

4. Food safety: the Food Act 1984 (Vic)

A centre that prepares and serves food to children is a registered food premises with its local council. Centres serving potentially hazardous food to children under five generally sit in the highest risk class. That brings the Food Standards Code's cleanliness requirements (Standard 3.2.2) and council inspections.

The practical question is the line between the cook's clean and the contractor's clean. The kitchen is the room where that line is most often unclear. We wrote about it in childcare kitchen cleaning: who does what.

5. Occupational health and safety

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic), the centre owes a duty to its own staff and to contractors working on its premises, so far as is reasonably practicable. The OHS Regulations 2017 add duties for hazardous chemicals, including keeping current safety data sheets accessible for products used at the workplace.

The cleaning company owes the same duties to its own workers. For the centre, the practical requirement is simple: know which chemicals come onto the premises, have their safety data sheets, and store them away from children.

Two newer layers

Child safety. Victoria's Child Safe Standards apply to early childhood services. Since 2026, Working with Children Checks, Child Safe Standards and the Reportable Conduct Scheme sit with the Social Services Regulator. A new Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority has taken over regulation of the sector from the department. These rules govern who may be in the building more than what gets cleaned. They affect the cleaners you engage, and we cover them in a separate post on cleaners and child safety.

Labour hire. A centre that uses a cleaning company in Victoria is a host under the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018 and must use a licensed provider. That is the subject of your centre as a labour hire host.

Turning it into something you can show

Five instruments, but in practice they ask for one set of evidence:

1. A written cleaning scope, by room and frequency, that matches your hygiene policy.
2. A product list with current safety data sheets.
3. A record that each clean happened, made at the time, not reconstructed later.
4. Proof that the people doing the cleaning are screened, licensed and accountable to you.

If your cleaner can give you all four without being chased, most of the compliance work is already done. That is how we set up every centre we clean. See medical and childcare cleaning, or ask for a walkthrough.