Secure Local Jobs Code ACT: A Practical Guide for Contractors
- Donna Keough
- May 9
- 10 min read
Hundreds of construction businesses hold ACT prequalification and never submit a bid. They watch Tenders ACT. They monitor EstimateOne. Months go by.
One of the biggest reasons is the Secure Local Jobs Code. Prequalification gets you into the waiting room. The Code Certificate gets you into the tender.
This guide explains what the Code is, who it applies to, what contractors need, and how to get compliant.
Written by Donna Keough, Director, YCM.
20+ years working inside Australian Government procurement, with a background rooted in the construction and facility industry, including Defence, Services Australia, ATO, ANU, Airservices and Agriculture. YCM helps contractors
get audit-ready, write LRTWE Plans that score well, and stay compliant
across the life of every Certificate.
Quick Answers
What is the ACT Secure Local Jobs Code?
The Secure Local Jobs Code is the ACT Government's procurement integrity framework. It has been in force since 15 January 2019, under the Government Procurement (Secure Local Jobs) Amendment Act 2018. Its purpose is simple: ACT Government contracts only go to businesses that meet defined standards around pay, safety, tax, insurance and industrial relations obligations.
The Code is administered by the Secure Local Jobs Registrar. Compliance assessments are carried out by independent Approved Auditors on the Registrar's list. The policy logic is a level playing field. Businesses doing the right thing by their workforce should not be undercut by competitors who avoid their legal obligations.
ACT prequalification and a Secure Local Jobs Code Certificate are two different things, issued by two different parts of the ACT Government, for two different purposes. You need both to tender for construction work.
Who Needs a Secure Local Jobs Code Certificate?
The Code applies whether you are a sole trader, partnership, trust or company. If you trade under an ABN and you are bidding on ACT Government work that falls into scope, you need a Code Certificate before you quote.
What Triggers the Secure Local Jobs Code?
Construction work of any value, as defined in the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011, section 289.
Cleaning work of any value (ANZSIC Class 7311).
Security work of any value (Security Industry Act 2003, section 7).
Traffic management of any value.
Other services or works procurements of $200,000 or more, where labour is the highest cost, unless listed as an excluded service.
For civil contractors, demolition specialists, landscapers, formwork crews and trade businesses in general, the first line is the one that matters. Any ACT Government construction work, at any contract value, triggers the Code.
Subcontractors are caught too. If you are the principal contractor on an ACT Government project, every subcontractor you engage on in-scope work must also hold a current Code Certificate, unless the service is excluded.
Tracking subcontractor certificates and their expiry dates becomes part of the principal contractor's compliance obligation.
The Standards the Secure Local Jobs Code ACT Measures You Against
When an Approved Auditor assesses your business, they are checking that your policies, systems and actual practice meet the Code's requirements across five broad areas.
Pay and employment conditions aligned with the relevant Modern Award, Enterprise Agreement or Fair Work Act minimum wage requirements.
Insurance, tax and superannuation obligations, including workers compensation, PAYG and the Superannuation Guarantee.
Work health and safety, training and inductions for new and existing workers, tailored to their duties and the workplace.
Collective bargaining, freedom of association and representation rights, including the facilitation of workplace delegates where applicable.
Right of entry obligations under the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, including contact details, working hours and workplace locations.
If an adverse ruling is made against your business in any court or tribunal in relation to these areas, you must notify the Registrar within seven days. Missing this window is itself a Code breach.
The Code is not a one-off test. It is a continuing obligation.
The Secure Local Jobs Code ACT Certificate
The Code Certificate is the artefact that lets you quote. Without it, your tender response will not be accepted, your quote will not be accepted, and you cannot enter into a contract for ACT Government work. Once you hold one, it is valid for up to 30 months, depending on your business's compliance history.
The Registrar issues the Certificate within five business days of receiving a complete and compliant audit report. The length of the overall process, however, is determined almost entirely by how prepared you are when the auditor arrives.
Field | Detail |
Issued by | Secure Local Jobs Registrar (on the recommendation of an Approved Auditor) |
Term | Up to 30 months, depending on compliance history |
Processing | Certificate issued within 5 business days of a complete, compliant application |
Required for | Any ACT Government construction, cleaning, security or traffic management work (any value), and other services or works $200,000+ |
Subcontractors | Must also hold a current Code Certificate, unless the service is excluded |
Indicative fee | Varies by business size and auditor:
|
The Labour Relations, Training and Workplace Equity Plan
Holding a Code Certificate lets you respond to the tender. For most meaningful contracts you also need a Labour Relations, Training and Workplace Equity (LRTWE) Plan submitted as part of that response. The LRTWE Plan is tender-specific. It is written for the job you are bidding on, in consultation with your workforce, and it is evaluated alongside the rest of your submission.
When an LRTWE Plan Is Required
Construction work valued at $200,000 or more.
Cleaning, security or traffic management work valued at $25,000 or more.
Other services or works procurements valued at $200,000 or more, where labour is the highest cost.
What the Plan Must Cover
A compliant LRTWE Plan addresses how your business will meet its obligations under the Code for this particular job. It covers your systems for compliance, your approach to workplace diversity, your support for employee health and wellbeing, your strategies for reducing insecure work, and the way you will keep your workforce aware of their Code obligations.
Once the contract is awarded, the Plan is not filed away. Principal contractors must comply with the Plan throughout delivery and provide quarterly compliance reports to the Territory. The Plan becomes an operating document, not a tender artefact.
The LRTWE Plan is evaluated. It is not a box-ticking exercise. A generic plan pulled together the week the tender closes will score poorly against a plan that reads like it was actually written for this job, by people who understand how evaluators score.
The Application Process, Step by Step
Read the Code. Parts 2 and 3 set out your obligations. Understand the specific standards your business will be assessed against.
Update your policies and systems. A policy states your principle on a topic, such as workplace induction or freedom of association. A system is the practical procedure or checklist that demonstrates how you actually do it. You need both, and they need to match your on-site practice.
Gather documentation. Activity statements, superannuation evidence, insurance certificates, employment records, induction materials, training registers, any existing WHS and management plans.
Engage an Approved Auditor. The auditor is independent of the ACT Government and chosen from the Registrar's published list. The audit engagement is between you and the auditor.
Complete the online application and send it to your auditor with the supporting documentation.
The auditor reviews your business, assesses compliance against the Code, and submits an audit report to the Registrar. You also receive a copy.
The Registrar reviews the report and issues the Certificate within five business days if the application is complete and compliant.
Where Contractors Slip
The audit itself is usually not where businesses fail. What trips contractors up is the ground they think they have covered but have not. A handful of predictable patterns account for most of the friction.
Policies That Do Not Match Practice
A contractor downloads a template induction policy and files it with the HR documents. The auditor arrives and asks to see the signed inductions for the last three new hires. There are none on file, or they do not follow the policy. The audit stalls. Policy and system have to match reality on site, not just exist on paper.
Subcontractor Compliance Untracked
The principal contractor holds their own Certificate. Their subcontractors on the ACT Government job do not. The principal has not asked, or has asked once and not updated. This is a live exposure for the principal, because the Code places the obligation to ensure subcontractor compliance on the principal, not the subcontractor.
LRTWE Plans Written Generically
The same Plan, slightly reworded, submitted with every bid. Evaluators notice. A Plan that reads like a repurposed template scores poorly against one that demonstrates the tenderer has thought about this specific contract, this specific workforce and this specific set of obligations.
Missed Notification Windows
An adverse ruling is handed down, in the Fair Work Commission or a court. Seven days pass. The Registrar is not notified. The Code breach is in the failure to notify, not necessarily in the original matter. This catches out contractors who otherwise have strong compliance.
Certificate Expiry Mid-Project
A Certificate issued at a quiet time expires in the middle of a busy tender cycle. Renewal takes time, especially if documentation has drifted since the last audit. During that gap no new ACT Government work can be bid for. Renewal planning is part of the discipline.
Is your business actually Code-ready?
A Code Readiness Review identifies:
likely audit gaps
missing documentation
subcontractor compliance risks
LRTWE weaknesses
renewal and notification exposure
YCM helps contractors prepare for Secure Local Jobs Code audits, LRTWE Plans and ongoing ACT Government compliance obligations.
What Happens When the Code Is Breached
If the Registrar is satisfied that a Certified Entity has failed to comply with the Code, the sanctions available include cancelling the Certificate, suspending it, imposing conditions, or prohibiting the contractor from applying for a new Certificate for a period. Any of these outcomes effectively removes the contractor from the ACT Government market while it stands.
The Registrar can also appoint an Approved Auditor to conduct a compliance audit on the basis of a complaint or a reasonable suspicion of breach. Contractors are required to cooperate, provide information within seven days of a request, and allow auditors access to workplaces. Non-cooperation is itself grounds for sanction.
Three Separate Requirements, Often Confused
Contractors who are new to ACT Government work frequently treat these three requirements as if they were one. They are not. They are administered by different parts of the ACT Government, they apply at different times, and they each need separate work.
Requirement | Administered by | Tells you |
ACT Prequalification | Infrastructure Canberra | You have the technical and financial capacity to deliver work in defined construction categories |
Secure Local Jobs Code Certificate | Secure Local Jobs Registrar, via Approved Auditor | Your business meets the workplace, tax, safety and industrial relations standards in the Code |
LRTWE Plan | Tender-specific. Submitted with each qualifying bid | How you will deliver Code-compliant work on this particular job, with evidence and a workforce-consulted plan |
You need all three to be fully tender-ready on ACT Government construction work valued at $200,000 or more. Missing one, no matter how strong the other two, keeps you out of the bid.
Where YCM Fits
YCM does not audit. The Approved Auditor is independent by design, and that independence protects both the contractor and the integrity of the Code. What YCM does is the work that sits either side of the audit.
Before the audit, YCM takes a contractor from wherever their compliance sits today to audit-ready.
Policies are drafted or rewritten to align directly with the obligations in Parts 2 and 3 of the Code.
Systems that sit behind those policies, the inductions, registers, checklists and procedures, are built so that practice matches paper.
Documentation is assembled into the form the auditor needs.
The goal is that the auditor arrives to an engagement that takes hours rather than weeks.
For each tender, YCM drafts the LRTWE Plan. Twenty-plus years working inside Australian Government procurement, including Commonwealth and State agencies, means the LRTWE Plans YCM writes are built to be scored well, not just submitted on time.
YCM writes LRTWE Plans built to score well; not just submitted on time
After the Certificate is issued, the work does not stop. Code Certificates expire. Subcontractor registers need to be live, not filed. Notification obligations sit on a seven-day clock. YCM's Contract Management as a Service keeps the compliance running quietly in the background, so the next renewal is a formality and no adverse ruling slips past the window.
YCM works alongside independent Approved Auditors and will make the introduction where useful. The contractor deals with one point of contact for the preparation, and then cleanly hands over to the auditor for the assessment.
If You Are a Prequalified Contractor Who Has Not Yet Bid
The Code is almost certainly part of the reason. It is also fixable. A short readiness review will tell you exactly what you already have, what is missing, and what the realistic path to your first Code Certificate looks like.
Most contractors discover the preparation is less onerous than the uncertainty. The businesses that never get a Certificate are almost always the businesses that never start the process, not the businesses that fail the audit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if a contractor breaches the Code?
If the Registrar is satisfied that a Certified Entity has failed to comply, sanctions include Certificate cancellation, suspension, conditions imposed on the Certificate, or prohibition from applying for a new Certificate for a defined period. Any of these effectively removes the contractor from the ACT Government market. Non-cooperation with a compliance audit is also itself grounds for sanction.
Who issues the Secure Local Jobs Certificate?
The Secure Local Jobs Registrar issues the Certificate, on the recommendation of an Approved Auditor. The Registrar sits within ACT Government procurement administration. The auditor is independent and chosen from the Registrar's published list. The contractor engages the auditor directly.
How long does the Secure Local Jobs audit process take?
The audit itself takes hours to days depending on preparedness. The bottleneck is usually the contractor's preparation, not the audit. Once a complete and compliant audit report reaches the Registrar, the Certificate is issued within five business days. Total elapsed time from "decided to apply" to "Certificate issued" varies from a few weeks to several months.
Can a contractor tender before certification is approved?
No. A current Code Certificate must be held before quoting, tendering, or entering into a contract for in-scope ACT Government work. Submitting a tender response without a Certificate will not result in the response being assessed. Plan the certification well ahead of the tender you want to bid on.
How much does a Secure Local Jobs Code audit cost?
Indicative auditor fees vary by business size and auditor. Micro-business $450 to $850. Small $700 to $2,000. Medium $1,000 to $3,250. Large $1,100 to $3,500. The total cost of getting Code-ready also includes any policy and systems work needed before the audit, which is typically the larger spend for first-time applicants.
Does ACT prequalification cover Secure Local Jobs Code requirements?
No. Prequalification and Code certification are separate. Prequalification confirms technical and financial capacity. The Code Certificate confirms workplace, tax, safety and industrial relations standards. You can hold prequalification and still be unable to tender for ACT Government construction work because you lack a Code Certificate.
What is the difference between the Secure Local Jobs Code and an LRTWE Plan?
The Code is a standing certification of your business. The LRTWE Plan is tender-specific, written for each qualifying bid, and evaluated as part of the tender response. The Code Certificate is a prerequisite to even submit. The LRTWE Plan is judged on its quality alongside the rest of your bid.
What happens when a Code Certificate expires?
If the Certificate expires, the business cannot quote, tender or enter into a new in-scope ACT Government contract until renewal is complete. Existing contracts in delivery continue under their original terms. Renewal requires a fresh audit, so most contractors begin the renewal process 90 days before expiry to avoid bid blackouts during the changeover.
YCM Capability Compliance Contracts | donna@ycmau.com.au | 0423 328 337
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