Client work at AHEG (Australian Higher Education Group) is performed under an agreed proposal, quote, service agreement, retainer or written scope. The scope will identify the deliverables, assumptions, client responsibilities, fees, payment terms, timelines and review process. Clients are responsible for providing accurate, complete and timely information. Work outside the agreed scope may require a variation, additional fee or revised timeline.
These Client Engagement Terms explain how consulting engagements with AHEG ordinarily operate. AHEG is part of CAQA Groups and a Career Calling International initiative (Career Calling International Pty Ltd, ABN 53 162 651 238). Our clients are higher education providers, aspiring providers, university colleges, institutes of higher education and the boards, executives and quality teams who lead them. Where a signed agreement exists between us, that agreement prevails over this page to the extent of any inconsistency.
Every engagement begins with a conversation about what you need and a written proposal or scope. Depending on the work, fees may be fixed for a defined deliverable, staged across milestones, or arranged as a retainer for ongoing advisory support. The scope records what is included, what is excluded, the assumptions we have relied on, who does what, and when. If circumstances change - for example, a regulator issues new guidance mid-engagement, or the evidence you supply reveals a larger problem than first described - we will discuss a variation before performing additional work.
Higher education consulting is evidence-driven. Depending on the scope, we will ask you to supply governance records, policies and procedures, course accreditation documentation, staffing and scholarship profiles, benchmarking results, student data, complaint registers, financial information and prior regulator correspondence. Our advice is only as good as the evidence it is based on: you are responsible for ensuring the material you give us is accurate, complete and current, and for telling us promptly if something material changes during the engagement. Delays in supplying agreed evidence may extend timelines and, where significant, may require a revised schedule or variation.
Where the scope involves registration, re-registration, course accreditation or governance improvement, we will typically work with your corporate and academic governance documentation - constitutions, board and committee charters, academic board terms of reference, delegations frameworks, risk registers, quality assurance frameworks and policy libraries. We may draft, review or restructure these documents as part of the engagement, but their adoption is always a decision of your governing body. AHEG does not assume the role of your board, academic board or accountable officers, and our involvement does not transfer any governance responsibility from your institution to us.
Clients remain responsible for their own regulatory compliance at all times. It is the provider - not AHEG - that holds or seeks registration and bears the obligations under the TEQSA Act 2011, the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, the ESOS framework and any other applicable legislation. You are responsible for approving all submissions made in your name, for the accuracy of statements made to regulators, for implementing (or choosing not to implement) our recommendations, and for maintaining compliance after the engagement ends.
Deliverables include the number of review rounds stated in the scope. For each round we ask you to provide consolidated feedback - one set of comments that reflects the agreed position of your institution - within the review window stated in the scope. Feedback received after the window, feedback that reverses previously settled decisions, or requests that expand the deliverable beyond the agreed scope may be handled as a variation with an additional fee or revised timeline. We will always tell you before variation charges arise.
TEQSA, professional accreditation bodies, government departments and other authorities make their decisions independently and on their own timelines. AHEG's advice, document preparation and submission support improve the quality of what you put before a decision-maker, but they do not and cannot guarantee registration, re-registration, course accreditation, professional-body accreditation, CRICOS approval or any other regulatory or funding outcome. No AHEG consultant is authorised to promise a regulatory result, and no engagement should be entered into on the expectation of one.
No payments are taken through this website. Fees are set out in each proposal or agreement and invoiced according to its payment schedule - typically on acceptance, at milestones or monthly for retainers. Invoices are payable on the terms stated on them. If an engagement is cancelled, work performed and costs committed up to the date of cancellation are ordinarily payable, and any cancellation or refund position specific to the engagement will be set out in the written scope. Nothing in these terms limits any rights you may have under the Australian Consumer Law.
We treat client information - evidence, governance documents, regulator correspondence, financial data and the fact of the engagement itself - as confidential, and we expect the same treatment of our methodologies, tools and draft materials. Confidential information is used only for the engagement, disclosed only to team members who need it, and returned or destroyed on request at the end of the work, subject to any records we are required to keep by law or professional obligation.
To discuss a scope of work, request a proposal or ask a question about these terms, contact us at info@caqa.com.au, call 1800 266 160 or use our contact page.
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