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Transcript - 'Ofqual Explains: Our general rules and guidance'

Published 10 December 2018

Applies to England

Welcome to another episode of Ofqual Explains. I’m going to talk about our general rules – and our guidance that supports them – in a bit more detail.

Our General Conditions of Recognition are the rules that apply to all the awarding organisations we regulate. The General Conditions of Recognition have two parts, and ten sections. Part 1 (sections A to C) sets out organisational requirements – rules that apply to all regulated awarding organisations, but do not directly relate to the qualifications they offer. These sections cover;

• requirements for the governance of awarding organisations (Section A),
• their interactions with Ofqual (Section B), and
• their arrangements with third parties, including Centres and publishers (Section C).

Part 2 (Sections D to I) sets out requirements that apply to all regulated qualifications (and their units). An awarding organisation must follow them as it as it designs, develops and awards each of its regulated qualifications. These sections cover;

• general requirements for regulated qualifications (Section D);
• the design and development of regulated qualifications (Section E);
• providing qualifications to purchasers, including fees, packaging and invoicing (Section F);
• setting and delivering assessments (Section G);
• marking, moderation and issuing results (Section H); and
• appeals, complaints and certification (Section I).

Section J applies to Parts 1 and 2 of the General Conditions. It contains rules of interpretation and an alphabetical list of our defined terms, and their definitions. You can find out more about this section in our video Working with our rules and guidance.

We have also published four sets of more detailed requirements, which build on – and should be read alongside, the General Conditions of Recognition;

• our certificate requirements, which set out the information that must be included on certificates for all regulated qualifications,
• our logo requirements, which details when awarding organisations can use Ofqual’s logo, and how that logo must be displayed,
• our ‘Total Qualification Time criteria’ – which specify how awarding organisations should determine the size of regulated qualifications (in terms of the values for Total Qualification Time and Guided Learning)
• ‘Qualification and Component Levels’, which covers how awarding organisations should assign a level to a regulated qualification.

Lastly, we have guidance designed to help awarding organisations comply with these rules. Most of our guidance maps directly to particular General Conditions of Recognition, and sets out indicators that would suggest when an awarding organisation would (and would not) be likely to comply with that Condition. We have also published some thematic guidance, which explains how our rules work together in relation to;

• Assigning levels to regulated qualifications, and the use of our level descriptors;
• Maintaining assessment confidentiality when teachers help develop assessments; and
• Making changes to incorrect results.

It is important to remember that all our guidance indicates how an awarding organisation might comply with our rules. Approaches set out in our guidance are not the only ways to comply, and may not always be the best way for a particular awarding organisation to comply. Although we allow some flexibility in how to comply with our rules, awarding organisations must have regard to our guidance. This means you can choose to take a different approach, but need to be able to explain why.

To recap:

• our General Conditions of Recognition contain rules that apply to awarding organisations (part 1) and the regulated qualifications they offer (Part 2),
• alongside the General Conditions, we have published four sets of more detailed rules – covering qualification certificates, use of the Ofqual logo, and the level and size of regulated qualifications,
• we have guidance to support compliance with specific General Conditions, as well as thematic guidance that explains how our rules work together in particular situations,
• our guidance indicates how you might comply. You can choose to take a different approach, but need to be able to explain why.

You can find all of our rules and guidance on our website, simply click on ‘understand our rules’.