Verification / Quality Assurance Strategy
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Oilean as an organisation offers a wide range of qualifications to suit the needs of many health
and social care organisations.
Oilean has a number of highly qualified and experienced assessors and verifiers
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Standardisation is a process which is central to the success of Oilean. Standardisation is evident
throughout the assessment process and is achieved through:
 the choice of skillset for each partner organisation
 the preparation of the portfolio with standard questions.
 the induction process.
 the identification of standardised sources of evidence from partner organisations. The
Centre Contact person explores potential sources of evidence for each partner organisation
before introducing new assessors
 the close support offered by the Centre Contact person to assessors throughout the
assessment process
 the monitoring and feedback process at the end of each assessment.
 the use of all our verifiers in the verification process.
 the inclusion of all our assessors in the SQA Quality Networks, SNIV and Tayforth
Learning Network
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The Centre coordinator in consultation with the Head of Centre identifies assessors and
verifiers for each of the partner organisations.
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Only trained assessors will be accepted for verification training or to carry out verification
work for the company.
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In line with SQA guidance an assessor will only be allowed to progress to assessment at Level
4 when he or she has evidenced his / her competence with Level 2 and 3 candidates.
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Assessors and verifiers require to be workplace competent
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Assessors and verifiers can only assess for qualifications where the candidate’s level of
qualification at the end of assessment is equal to or below the assessor’s own qualifications.
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In line with guidance from SQA the Head of Centre retains the right to insist that all work from
an individual assessor or particular organisation will be verified.
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Candidates going forward for A1 and V1 awards will be supported through individual
coaching, developmental standardisation meetings and the use of video scenarios to develop
their assessment skills.
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All new awards and the work from all new assessors will be subject to 100% verification.
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The verifier will sample three units of an eight unit portfolio assessed by an experienced
assessor, at least one mandatory and one optional unit per portfolio. Assessors will submit
candidates portfolios for initial verification when they have approximately two units completed,
or before that if the assessor has concerns over progress.
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In line with best practice and in order to support evidence of continuous competence Direct
Observations and Reflective Accounts will be of differing interventions.
 In line with advice from External Moderator any “expert witness” must be a professional
person with expert knowledge in the field in which are providing evidence as well as having a
knowledge of the occupational standards. Trainers for example may act as expert witnesses,
e.g. in manual handling, food hygiene etc. providing they are in a position to make judgments
on the competence of the candidate. Expert witnesses must provide evidence of their expertise
and knowledge of the standards to the Centre Contact Person who will form a judgment
regarding their witness status. This should be done prior to the evidence being placed within the
candidate’s portfolio.
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As a quality assurance check portfolios will be verified across the range of verifiers available to
the Centre
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The verifier will sample across the award using a sampling strategy suitable to the differing
experiences of the assessors and differing awards.
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Standardisation of the HN group of awards, HNC in Social Care, PDA in Health and Social
Care Supervision, PDA in Leadership and Management of Care Services will be evidenced
through cross-marking of the graded unit of 1 in 3 candidates. Blind Crossmarking should take
place in 50% of graded units crossmarked.
Date 26.6.2013