The Quality Reviewer

A Quality Reviewer is appointed to each centre following centre recognition and has ongoing responsibility for monitoring your Centre’s compliance with the requirements of Recognised Centre Status. Your appointed Quality Reviewer will contact you to arrange the initial visit once notification of the first course to be offered has been received.

The Quality Reviewer normally visits the centre once or twice a year, although more visits may be agreed for a larger centre. The Quality Reviewer’s remit includes auditing of quality systems and external verification of learner achievement. Additional activities such as postal external verification may be included where appropriate.

Quality Reviewers plan their annual programme of centre visits well in advance and are therefore unlikely to be available at short notice. Please make sure that your Quality Reviewer knows in good time when your courses are likely to finish so that a visit can be scheduled at an appropriate time. The Quality Reviewer will offer support to the centre and will monitor and report on the progress of the agreed quality improvement actions.

The Quality Reviewer visit

Before the visit:
The purpose, timing and format of each visit will be agreed between the Quality Reviewer and the centre. The Quality Reviewer will send a visit plan to outline the activities they propose to undertake before each meeting. In some cases the Quality Reviewer may request supporting documentation, such as the centre self assessment report or retention and achievement results.

During the visit:
The Quality Reviewer will want to meet the centre’s Quality Assurance Contact and will also request time with other staff involved in the accreditation process, depending on the focus of the visit – this may include tutors/assessors, internal verifiers, administrative staff or learners.
One visit per year will involve an audit of quality systems (the annual review); others may be principally for external verification of learner achievement, but wherever possible this will be carried out at the same time as the annual review. Where a centre has direct claims status, visits will also include monitoring of the work of the Approved Internal Verifier(s).

After the visit:
The Quality Reviewer will produce a summary report after each visit and the quality improvement plan will be updated. Any factors which may present a risk to the security of the award of credit will be identified with actions for the centre and/or OCNLR to be undertaken within specified timescales. All reports will be sent to the centre’s Quality Assurance Contact by email.

The Quality Assurance Contact

Each centre is asked to appoint someone to be the Quality Assurance Contact in the centre with whom the Quality Reviewer will work. This is an important role as it takes the lead in ensuring actions to improve quality are agreed with the QR and, in particular, that those actions are implemented. The scope of the role is centre-wide and not confined to one department or section. The QAC needs to have sufficient organisational authority to perform the role. A detailed description of this role can me found by clicking here.