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Awarding bodies

In your role you will most likely be influenced by awarding bodies. These are United Kingdom government approved organisations allowed to regulate qualifications. The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) acts on behalf of the government in England, Wales and North Ireland. The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) acts on behalf of the Scottish government to perform a similar role. These government bodies work with sector skills councils when developing the qualifications. Sector skills research and come up with the occupational standards linked with job roles.

Awarding bodies role and duties include designing qualifications following any framework in place such as the Qualifications Credit Framework (QCF). They approve centres and provide guidance and support to ensure qualifications are run safely. They have other roles such as generating certificates to successful candidates and ensuring the credibility of qualifications is maintained.

You are expected to follow all awarding body regulations and terms of your organisation’s registration. Not doing so might result in your organisation having sanctions, which can even result in suspension. Prior to the introduction of QCF qualifications, awarding bodies relied on the NVQ code of practice 1996 which they used to regulate training organisations and assessors. For example, the code of practice required verifiers to prove they were also qualified assessors as the argument was how they could support assessors if they were not qualified assessors themselves?

 

Funding bodies requirements

You might also need to be aware of funding bodies especially if your organisation provides funded courses. The main body is the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) especially when you assess apprenticeships. Other funding sources could be banks under the Careers Development Loans? Some funding might also come under various schemes, which help learners to get back into work. All these funding bodies have a number of characteristics, which are common such as the eligibility criteria? You will be expected to check if learners are eligible to be funded. Other expectations will be to provide a value for money service, which includes ensuring learners are supported and maintaining records. You are tasked with maintaining standards to avoid clawback of funds or non-payment. At one point the SFA clawed back some funds after discovering some providers who were giving learners a multiple choice question where they were expected to clearly identify regulations that affect them in their own practice.