John Carr
Senior External Verifier.
SQA
New approach to Quality
Assurance (HN & SVQ)
March 2014
SQA new approach to Quality
Assurance.
 Piloted by SQA for last 3 years.
 Full implementation in all centres in
2014-2015.
 Currently only HN & Vocational
Qualifications.
 Volunteer Colleges in 2013-2014.
Summary of key changes.
 Refreshed Quality Assurance Criteria.
 Introduction of outcome ratings.
 Introduction of Action Plans
 Introduction of Sanctions..
 Refreshed Qualifications Verification Reports
(QVR)
Specific Quality Criteria for:-
Quality Criteria.
Six Categories:
Management of a centre.
-
Resources.
Candidate Support.
Internal Assessment & Verification.
External Assessment.
Records/Data Management.
Overall Outcome Rating determines.
 No actions.
 Action Plan
 Sanctions.
Qualification Verification Visits

Matching Evidence against criteria.
 High Impact Criteria
 Medium Impact Criteria
 Low Impact Criteria
 Sufficient Evidence
 Insufficient Evidence
 No Evidence
Qualification Verification Activity
 Visit Planning.
 Agreeing Sample.
 Verifying assessment decisions and
evidence.
 On-line reporting.
 Colouring in. (traffic lights)
 EVs lose some autonomy.
System dictates the outcome
actions/sanction
5 possible ‘outcome ratings’ for
each category.
– Significant Strengths.
– Strengths outweigh weaknesses.
– Some Strengths & Some Weaknesses
– Weaknesses outweigh Strengths
– Significant weaknesses.
– Overall outcome rating for the verification
visit. Defaults to the lowest outcome
rating.
Q.V. Reports.
Refer to Example!