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RTO Training Consultants
The definitive guide

How to choose an RTO consultant.

ASQA publishes a guide to working with consultants and expects you to do due diligence on anyone you hire. This page walks that guide question by question: what ASQA prompts you to ask, how to test any consultant against it, and our own answer on the record. At the bottom: a printable comparison checklist that works against us exactly as well as it works against everyone else.

Read ASQA’s guide at asqa.gov.au →

Question 1: Is the consultant regulated?

How to test any consultant (including us)

  • Ask directly: what regulator or licensing scheme covers your consulting work? (The honest answer is none.)
  • Be wary of anyone who implies endorsement by ASQA — the regulator does not endorse, approve or register consultants.
  • Since no regulator screens them, demand the external checks that do exist: credentials, certifying bodies, verifiable history.

Our answer

No — and neither is anyone else. Which is why every consultant on our bench page carries credential titles with certifying bodies you can ring.

Question 2: What experience and credentials do they have?

How to test any consultant (including us)

  • Ask for the names of the individuals who will do your work — a proposal signed by a brand is not an answer.
  • Ask for credential titles and the certifying body for each; then verify one with the body. A consultant who hesitates has answered.
  • Ask how many years, and in which parts of the sector. Registration experience is not performance-assessment experience is not resource writing.

Our answer

Six named consultants, 25 to 35+ years each, credential ledgers published on their own sites and linked from the bench. Certifying bodies are named on every credential we cite — Exemplar Global, PMI, Microsoft, RMIT University, Holmesglen, Edith Cowan University and others.

Question 3: Will the products and resources reflect my organisation and my students?

How to test any consultant (including us)

  • Ask to see the questions they will ask about your student cohort before writing anything.
  • Ask what happens if you request a training and assessment strategy without a cohort discussion. The right answer is a refusal.
  • Ask whether the same document has been sold to other RTOs. Generic and templated tools are a known trigger for refusals by the regulator.

Our answer

Our method requires a documented cohort discussion before a training and assessment strategy is written, and a pre-use review of assessment tools under Outcome Standard 1.3. Two of our published refusals exist for exactly this question: we will not write a strategy for a cohort we have not discussed, and we will not supply a template as your evidence of context. Both are on the record.

Question 4: Who remains responsible for compliance?

How to test any consultant (including us)

  • Ask them to state, in writing, who is responsible for your RTO’s compliance. There is only one correct answer: you are.
  • Walk away from anyone offering to “handle ASQA” for you or communicate with the regulator as if they were you.
  • Check the contract: does it quietly promise outcomes, or does it define deliverables?

Our answer

You remain responsible — it is in our Client Engagement Terms, our Outcomes Disclaimer, and the footer of every page on this site. We build systems and evidence; you operate them.

Question 5: What happens if the work fails?

How to test any consultant (including us)

  • Ask for the rectification commitment in writing before you engage — not a verbal assurance after.
  • Ask what specifically triggers it: “deficient against the clauses it was scoped to address” is testable; “if you’re not happy” is not.
  • Ask what it costs you. Rework of a deficient fixed-scope deliverable should cost you nothing.

Our answer

Our written commitment: if a deliverable inside a fixed scope is found deficient against the Outcome Standards clauses it was scoped to address, we rework it at our own cost within ten working days of notice. It appears in our Client Engagement Terms, which are published, not produced on request.

Question 6: Is the scope — and the price — in writing before you commit?

How to test any consultant (including us)

  • Ask for the price before you disclose your budget. A consultant who needs your budget to price a defined job is quoting you, not pricing the work.
  • Ask for the exclusions list. A scope with no stated exclusions is a dispute scheduled for later.
  • “Book a free consultation and we’ll scope it” is a sales funnel, not a scope.

Our answer

Every package we sell is on the pricing page with a fixed fee and a mandatory “what you do not get” column — and the scoping tool resolves your job to a number before we know your name. Where a job honestly cannot be fixed-priced, we say so and route it to the bespoke arm of our family rather than pretending.

Download the checklist

The consultant comparison checklist.

Print it, then score every consultant you are considering — including us. Every row is checkable from public information or one direct question. If a row cannot be verified, that is itself a result.

RTO Training Consultants — consultant due diligence checklist (works against us too)

Score each consultant: yes, no, or could not verify

The test Consultant AConsultant BConsultant C
Names the individual consultants who will do your work — not just a company logo
Publishes credential titles with the certifying body that issued each one
Invites you to verify credentials directly with the certifying bodies
States in writing that your RTO remains responsible for its own compliance
Publishes prices — a number you can see before you make contact
Defines each scope in writing, including what you do not get
Gives a written rectification commitment if a deliverable fails
Refuses to guarantee a registration decision or performance assessment outcome
Asks about your student cohort before writing a training and assessment strategy
Declines work outside their scope and tells you where it belongs
Uses the regulator’s terminology accurately (performance assessment, Outcome Standards)
Provides case evidence that names its constraints, not just its wins

Based on the prompts in ASQA’s Guide to Working with Consultants (asqa.gov.au/guidance-resources/working-consultants). Consultants in the VET sector are not regulated; the provider remains responsible for its own compliance regardless of who it engages. Published by RTO Training Consultants, a brand of RTO Training Resources Pty Ltd (ABN 17 631 073 213) — score us with it.

Score us first →
Family disclosure. RTO Training Consultants is a brand of RTO Training Resources Pty Ltd (ABN 17 631 073 213), part of the CAQA Groups family. Our consultants are the same team that delivers CAQA’s advisory work. The difference is the service model: our scopes and prices are fixed and published. CAQA’s engagements are bespoke and quoted.