Changes to the recognition of awarding organisations

Two key changes to the recognition of awarding organisations are taking place as part of the VQ Reforms in England and Northern Ireland and possibly Wales.

• In England and Wales, and possibly in Northern Ireland, employers and providers are now able to apply for recognition as awarding organisations. To do so, they will have to meet the same criteria and standards as existing awarding organisations. For details, see Accreditation of employer & provider training.
• In England and Northern Ireland, the Education & Skills Bill 2007 is proposing to give Ofqual additional powers to recognise awarding organisations, as well as accredit individual VQs. QCA (now Ofqual) does recognise awarding organisations in practice, but the process is not clearly formalised in the existing legislation. The change will enable a more appropriate regulatory process, allowing Ofqual to shift the balance of its scrutiny from individual VQs to the operations and processes of the awarding organisation overall. The intention is that the existing powers to scrutinise individual VQs would only need to be applied in cases where there is a high level of risk. Risks may arise, for example, from concerns about an awarding organisation's processes or capacity, the previous record of performance of an organisation, or risks to the public or the reputation of the system. Otherwise, Ofqual will accredit the organisation and then base the accreditation of individual VQs on SSCs' support or approval and only raise questions where there is some doubt about whether the SSC's approval has been applied appropriately.

The process, standards and level of scrutiny will be entirely the same whoever develops and awards qualifications - be it a traditional awarding organisation or an employer or provider newly recognised as an awarding organisation.

Regulatory Arrangements for the QCF published in August 2008 sets out the standards that must be met by all organisations that operate within, and the qualifications that are accredited into, the QCF. The arrangements apply to all organisations, whether they are traditional awarding organisations, employers, providers or other new awarding organisations. These regulatory arrangements have been designed flexibly so they will be compatible, whatever the details of the roll-out of the QCF.

Proposed future legislative changes in England are detailed in Future role of SSCs - in England and Maintaining high standards and low bureaucracy.