TERMS & CONDITIONS

A] INFORMATION FOR POTENTIAL SUBSCRIBERS OR REGISTRANTS

BNG NGO Services Online provides a web based subscription service offering online resources and support to Australian NGOs and not for profit organisations. The service is aimed at Australian organisations and extends to organisations in New Zealand.
BNG NGO Services Online has been developed by Breaking New Ground ABN 86 089 506 847 which trades as BNG NGO Services Online.

Subscribers will subscribe or register online and access will be by user names and passwords issued to individual contact people in organisations.

Organisations may subscribe or register for one or both of the available services:

  • Management Support Online (MSO)
  • Standards & Performance Pathways (SPP)

A full annual subscription to MSO entitles the subscriber to seek assistance with specific issues related to the management and operation of their organisation or their work within an organisation. Where organisations are registering to use an MSO service provided by a third party, the assistance service may not be included as a free service.

All potential subscribers and registrants must read, ensure that they understand and confirm that they accept the terms and conditions for use of the service before they are able to subscribe or register to a BNG NGO Services Online site. Any misuse of the site or breach of the terms and conditions may result in cancellation of a subscription without refund or cancellation of a registration.

Standards and Performance Pathways

  1. Eligibility:
    SPP accounts are for the use of organisations conducting their own quality standards assessment or wishing to use SPP to manage quality, risk or compliance within their organisation. Private consultants, universities and tertiary institutions, accrediting agencies and government agencies are not eligible to subscribe to SPP unless a specific agreement has been entered into with BNG.
  2. Assessments:
    Assessments and tracking information provided on SPP are for the use of organisations conducting the self assessment component of a quality or service standards review. Organisations may provide access to their account to external reviewers or auditors for the purpose of completing an assessment against quality or service standards.
  3. Accreditation:
    SPP does not provide accreditation or certification. Unless explicitly stated in the information about a particular set of quality or service standards, successful completion by the subscribing organisation of an item within SPP does not imply that any external administering, accrediting or regulatory body will accept the evidence provided for the purposes of certification or accreditation.
  4. Passwords:
    An organisation with a valid subscription to SPP may have any number of registered individual users. The nominated administrator(s) of an organisation are responsible for authorising other individuals within their organisation to register as users. Each authorised user must create a password when registering for individual access. In the case of MSO, an organisation is allocated a defined number of log-in passwords and the organisation is responsible for providing the log-in details to authorised users.

Intellectual Property:
All content that is made available to public view, other than that placed on the website by subscribers, in discussion forums or chat rooms is owned by, or licensed to Breaking New Ground. Subscribers are permitted to print a hard copy of any material on this site for their personal use or use within their organisation. Materials that are provided with a “save and use” option may be downloaded and modified or adapted for personal use or use within the subscriber’s organisation provided that source identification contained in the footer of these documents is retained within the adapted or modified document.

Breaking New Ground cannot and does not grant any permission or authority in respect of the copyright in the material which is posted to our site by others, or which appears at third-party internet sites and strongly recommends that you refer to the copyright statements at those sites before making use of those materials.

Breaking New Ground’s privacy policy governs the way BNG NGO Services Online may use the subscriber’s information. This privacy policy may be viewed on the BNG NGO Services Online website.

B] ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

  1. Use of the Website and Assistance Services:
    i. Access to the website and entitlement to use of assistance services is by an annual subscription payable by the due date or registration to a BNG NGO Services Online service paid for by a third party.
    ii. Subscribers may increase their subscription level at any time, but no refunds will be made for cancelled subscriptions or reduced usage levels.
    iii. Only password holders (and authorised users) may use the BNG NGO Services Online sites and services and BNG NGO Services Online may refuse to answer inquiries that it believes are not submitted by a legitimate password holder or which fall outside the scope of the assistance service.
    iv. Breaking New Ground reserves the right to alter the assistance service or change the annual subscription fee from time to time. Any such changes will be advised on the BNG NGO Services Online website.
    v. Breaking New Ground may wish to update or change these terms and conditions from time to time to reflect changes in the website or its services, changes in the laws affecting the website or its services, or for other good reasons. Breaking New Ground reserves the right to make these changes and you are responsible for regularly reviewing these terms and conditions. Continued access to the website or use of the assistance services after any such change shall constitute your consent to such change. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any new features that change or improve the website or the assistance services shall be subject to these terms and conditions, as modified from time to time.
    vi. All assistance requests submitted through the MSO assistance service must be submitted using the template on the MSO website and must disclose all material facts. All information set out in each assistance request must be accurate and complete. Breaking New Ground reserves the right to request further information prior to submission of a response, but is under no obligation to do so.
    vii. Responses may be delayed where subscribers submit multiple assistance requests in a short period of time.
    viii. Once BNG NGO Services Online determines that a full response has been provided to any approved inquiry, Breaking New Ground reserves the right to refuse to communicate further with the subscriber in relation to that response.
    ix. The subscriber agrees not to interfere with the proper working of the BNG NGO Services Online website. The subscriber agrees not to do anything that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the website infrastructure or interfere with any other person’s use and enjoyment of the website.
    x. Subscribers must avoid bringing this website into disrepute, avoid any tampering with Breaking New Ground material and ensure that Breaking New Ground intellectual property rights are protected at all times.
  2. Provision and Use of Information:
    i. The information contained in this site is of a general nature only designed for not for profit organisations operating within Australia and its territories. The information has not been prepared taking into account a particular organisation’s situation or needs.
    ii. Upon cessation of an account, Breaking New Ground reserves the right to charge a fee for the retention and storage of any information and data entered by subscribers online.
    iii. The information provided through the services of BNG NGO Services Online by way of direct assistance to subscribers including information provided by a third party administering the ‘Getting Assistance’ service is intended to be general information to assist with common business issues and is not provided in the nature of advice. Subscribers may not use any material on this site for any purpose other than as a source of information for personal or organisational use unless authorised in writing to the contrary. Subscribers may not reproduce and/or use any material on this site for the purposes of paid or unpaid work with a third party organisation, group or individual who is not a current subscriber to the BNG NGO Services Online unless authorised in writing, by BNG NGO Services Online, to the contrary.
    iv. No person should rely on any response to a request for assistance or any other information provided by BNG NGO Services Online or a third party administering the ‘Getting Assistance’ service without first obtaining advice from an appropriately qualified professional person. Information and responses to inquiries are provided to the subscriber on the basis that:
    a. Breaking New Ground is not responsible for the results of any actions taken as a result of information contained in responses or otherwise provided by BNG NGO Services Online, nor for any error in or omission from such information;
    b. Breaking New Ground is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional advice or services; and
    c. Breaking New Ground expressly disclaims all and any liability to the subscriber and to any other person in respect of anything done or omitted to be done by any person in reliance, whether wholly or partially, directly or indirectly, on information contained in responses or otherwise provided by BNG NGO Services Online.
    v. Breaking New Ground reserves the right to determine in its absolute discretion what constitutes an appropriate assistance request within the MSO Subscriber Service and to approve an inquiry for response. An assistance request will not be appropriate if the question:
    a. requires advice or opinions on a specific factual situation;
    b. requires legal, financial or other professional advice;
    c. calls for a recommendation as to a particular course of action;
    d. calls for a recommendation as to a particular course of action;
    e. is not a single question.
    vi. Subscribers not based in Australia subscribe on the understanding that inquiries that require a working knowledge of their operational environment may not be able to be approved for response.
    vii. Breaking New Ground makes no representations regarding compliance with laws in any jurisdiction outside the Commonwealth of Australia and it is the obligation of any subscriber that is located outside Australia or that uses the information contained on this site or the assistance service outside Australia to ensure compliance with all laws in that jurisdiction.
  3. Limitation of Liability:
    i. Breaking New Ground is not liable in any way whatsoever to any person or organisation for any loss, damage, liability, cost or expense incurred either directly or indirectly as a result of the material contained on this site or from any unauthorised access to, or misuse of, this site.
    ii. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Breaking New Ground specifically disclaims all warranties and representations whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise relating in any way whatsoever to its provision of services under these terms and conditions, including, without limitation, any warranty that the services provided by it are fit for a particular purpose. The subscriber acknowledges that it must exercise and rely upon its own skill in determining whether the services provided by BNG NGO Services Online meet its particular requirements.
    iii. Any liability of Breaking New Ground (whether in contract, tort or otherwise) arising under or in relation to the provision of services in accordance with these terms and conditions, including under any term implied into these terms and conditions, will be limited, at the option of Breaking New Ground, to either supplying those services again or the reasonable cost of supplying those services again.
    iv. Without limiting the effect of any other provision of these terms and conditions, the parties agree that the total liability of Breaking New Ground to the subscriber arising in any circumstances whatsoever, whether under these terms and conditions or otherwise, will be limited to the amount of the subscription fee paid by the subscriber.
    v. In no event will Breaking New Ground be liable to the subscriber or any other person for any remote, indirect, consequential, special or incidental damages whatsoever, including without limitation, damages resulting from loss of data, loss of profit or business interruption or damage directly or indirectly caused to computer files through use of the BNG NGO Services Online website. This limitation will apply even if Breaking New Ground has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
    vi. Information contained on this website may be updated, altered or deleted from time to time and Breaking New Ground makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness or security of the information contained on this site. Changes in circumstances after the date of publication may impact on the accuracy of the information contained on the website.
    vii. Breaking New Ground does not warrant that the provision of the BNG NGO Services Online site or services or any part of them will be continuous, uninterrupted or error free. From time to time, the BNG NGO Services Online website may not be available due to upgrades or maintenance.
    viii. Links to other sites are provided for your convenience only and are not under the control of Breaking New Ground. Breaking New Ground accepts no responsibility whatsoever in respect of such sites. Any such links do not constitute or imply an endorsement, approval or recommendation of any third party website or any other company, product or service or any affiliation between Breaking New Ground and any other organisation (unless otherwise expressly stated) and no opinion or advice provided on such website should be taken to be that of Breaking New Ground.
  4. Liability of Subscribers:
    i. In the event that information and responses to inquiries provided by BNG NGO Services Online are used by the subscriber in advising its clients, the subscriber uses such information at the subscriber’s own risk.
    ii. The subscriber indemnifies Breaking New Ground fully against any liability, loss, action, proceeding, cost, expense, claim and damages whatsoever (including legal fees) which may arise, directly or indirectly, as a result of:
    a. any breach by the subscriber of these terms and conditions whatsoever;
    b. reliance by the subscriber on any information (including responses to inquiries) obtained from BNG NGO Services Online;
    c. reliance by any third party on any assistance or information given by the subscriber, which was derived directly or indirectly from any information (including responses to inquiries) obtained from BNG NGO Services Online;
    d. the use or distribution by any person of material placed on the site by the subscriber or from the alteration, modification of or addition to material on the site by the subscriber.
    iii. Subscribers are fully liable for all materials that they post on this website and must not post any material on this site which is unauthorised, fraudulent, offensive, defamatory, inappropriate, in breach of any law, including any intellectual property law or which contains advertising or promotional materials and must not, at any time, impersonate any other person. Any opinions or advice posted on the website by third parties are the responsibility of those third parties and Breaking New Ground accepts no responsibility whatsoever.
    iv. Each part of the BNG NGO Services Online website, the detailed content and design of SPP, and all communications from BNG NGO Services Online as part of the assistance service provided by the MSO Subscriber Service (“MSO content”) are protected by copyright unless otherwise indicated. Breaking New Ground reserves all rights in respect of the BNG NGO Services Online content. The subscriber agrees not to distribute, copy, reproduce, alter, adapt, modify, translate, create relative works, transmit, store on electronic or other media or otherwise deal with the BNG NGO Services Online content, including each part of the BNG NGO Services Online content, except as permitted in accordance with these terms and conditions or where expressly permitted to do so by Breaking New Ground.
    v. The detailed content and design of SPP are protected by copyright and subscriber agrees not to, by itself or assisting a third party, attempt to copy or duplicate the content or design of this site.
    vi. Subscribers are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their password and for ensuring that only persons authorised by the organisation access the account. Subscribers are responsible for all activities that occur using their password to log in and subscribers must notify Breaking New Ground immediately of any unauthorised use of their password. Breaking New Ground is not responsible for any loss that a subscriber may incur as a result of any unauthorised person using its password. Breaking New Ground reserves the right to audit subscribers for unauthorised use of passwords and/or access to the subscription based content/services.
  5. Confidentiality:
    i. No information, feedback, questions or comments placed on this site in a public area of the site such as a message board, chat forum or blog by any person other than Breaking New Ground will be confidential, authorised or otherwise endorsed.
    ii. Breaking New Ground reserves the right to publish in print and electronic format, any questions and answers provided by a subscriber in the course of the assistance service. Before publishing such material Breaking New Ground will remove all identifying factors with the aim of preserving confidentiality.
    iii. Breaking New Ground undertakes to keep its data base of subscriber passwords and user names confidential and to safeguard this information from unauthorised use.
    iv. Information and data entered by a subscriber online in an area of their account other than the public areas of the site, will be confidential to the password holders for that account. Breaking New Ground reserves the right for its authorised staff and web developer to view an account and its contents for administrative or audit purposes, and/or in order to resolve any problems of a specific or technical nature that have been identified by the subscriber.
    v. As good practice, subscribers are encouraged to maintain a copy of data and information loaded on to the BNG NGO Services Online site.
  6. Termination:
    i. Breaking New Ground is entitled to cease providing access to the subscriber and to terminate a subscription by written notice, without prejudice to any other rights it may have against the subscriber, if the subscriber fails to comply with any of these terms and conditions. Where the subscriber is in material breach of these terms and conditions, then access may be ceased and subscription may be terminated immediately. Where the breach is not material and is capable of being remedied, but continues unremedied for 7 days after written notice specifying the breach and requiring remedy is given by Breaking New Ground to the subscriber then access may be ceased and subscription may be terminated at the end of that 7 day period.
    ii. Breaking New Ground is entitled to cease providing access to a subscriber and terminate that subscriber’s subscription immediately upon written notice to the subscriber if Breaking New Ground reasonably forms the view that the subscriber has permitted any person other than a legitimate password holder to have access to BNG NGO Services Online
  7. General
    i. The subscriber may not assign, sub-license or otherwise transfer the benefit of a subscription without the prior written consent of Breaking New Ground.
    ii. Where the subscriber is an organisation, it is responsible for ensuring that all contact people within that organisation who are issued with a password are aware of, and fully comply with, these terms and conditions.
    iii. All references in this site to “$” or “dollars” are references to Australian currency unless otherwise stated.
    iv. The BNG NGO Services Online website is operated and controlled in Australia. These terms and conditions will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New South Wales and of the Commonwealth of Australia. The parties submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of the State of New South Wales and of the Commonwealth of Australia in respect of any dispute that arises in connection with these terms and conditions.
We used SPP to prepare for our recent NDIS audit across a range of service areas and it was extremely helpful – to the degree that our auditor said we “exceeded” in several areas! As part of that process, we worked with BNG to build a bespoke internal “Vinnies NDIS” module, to ensure consistency of practices across our many services. We are thrilled with the results and are now using SPP across our whole organisation.
St Vincent de Paul Society (NSW)
Just wanted to let you know we really appreciated your extra effort to get us up-do-date with the new NDIS practice standards. We’ve already received some feedback from our audit, and they were really pleased that we already had a draft guideline to cover High Intensity Daily Personal Activities. Thanks again for your ongoing support – it is appreciated and is making a difference!!
Large multi-service provider, WA
SPP has been a great resource for understanding and mapping Standards, preparing for Audits and also sourcing resources for policy development. I would recommend it to other organisations to complement their quality and compliance work. Information can be easily shared, and evidence gathered to support all work done.
Community mental health service provider, Victoria
I like the speed and ease of SPP, I love how it maps multiple standards. It’s so convenient, I couldn’t imagine the nightmare to do the work manually. The templates are great for gap analysis. SPP resource templates are great for implementing new policies in the office and for what we do day to day.
Large provider of settlement services to immigrants, New South Wales
I have found the SPP system amazing. It provides a structured way to work through the standards and then provide a succinct report on the evidence being provided for a surveyor to view how we meet the standard. I used this in our recent accreditation survey, the auditor was very impressed, AND we are now accredited for ISO 9001. Thanks again. A great system.
Provider of diverse range of health programs, Queensland
We really like SPP. We use the resources in the Reading Room and couldn't have passed our accreditation with flying colours without SPP.
Advocacy, support and education provider, Australian Capital Territory
Everything is going well with SPP. It’s helped us through three lots of accreditation over the past nine months plus some internal auditing, so I’m very glad to have had it to assist us through the processes.
Large regional multi-service provider, Victoria
Thanks Claire, I just wanted to pass on the compliments we received from the NDIS auditors. We gave them access to SPP to audit our documents and they were amazed and thrilled with the platform. It made their job so easy and they were not aware that a platform like this exists. Just wanted to share this feedback. We've been using SPP now for six years, and we are very happy with it.
Home Care and Disability Services Provider, New South Wales
Hi BNG, I love you guys! Thanks for all the updates, they are great!!! I am madly getting ready for audit and couldn’t do it without you.
Community transport provider, New South Wales
Hi James, I'd just like to say that working with you and your colleagues at BNG/SPP has been nothing short of excellent. Your professionalism, the quality of your product and your amazing customer service have been so completely refreshing!
Large provider of homelessness services, Victoria
The portal has really improved our ability to conduct self-assessments, and helped to reduce risk through greater visibility against other accreditation standards. Another terrific benefit is access to all of the templates and evidence guides in the Reading Room, as well as the regular alerts about new resources or industry changes, to make sure we keep up to date.
Baptcare, Victoria
We just had our first certification audit under NDIS Quality Safeguards Standard last week, the auditor loved the portal. Keep up the excellent work!
Large provider of supports to adults with a disability, Victoria
Thanks again for all the amazing support you and the team offer – makes our job so easy having such a stable tool to work on with our clients.
Provider of accreditation and governance services
I just wanted to let you know that we've now completed our ASES accreditation! A big thank you to the team at BNG!
NSW homelessness service provider