From 1 August 2022, all centres started to receive an Annual Monitoring Review (AMR) which we hope will improve your experience of working with us. AMRs will take place each academic session between September and July, unless you’re a T Level provider (AMRs for T Level providers will take place between September to November).
We’ve introduced these reviews as a direct result of your feedback, as we understand that you currently spend a lot of time preparing generic information at every external quality assurance review. We hope that by removing these non-specific criteria from the external quality assurance review and covering this just once as part of an AMR, we’re able to reduce your administration and ultimately save you time.
Annual Monitoring Review (AMR) – what to expect and what it means for you
The focus of this review is to quality assure your management systems and administration, ensuring they remain compliant with our approval criteria. No learners will be sampled as part of this review, as this will be covered during our external quality assurance or moderation reviews.
Centres will be allocated a Quality Reviewer, who will conduct the AMR across all internally assessed qualifications. This means you only need to submit generic information around management systems and administration once a year.
Following the AMR, centres will receive a report from their Quality Reviewer and will be given an overall risk rating of low, medium or high, based on the evidence that was made available. Any actions for centres with a low or medium risk status will be checked at their next review during the following session. Actions for centres with a high risk status will be reviewed during an interim review before the end of the academic year.
The criteria used to determine this status is outlined in our User Guide to the Annual Monitoring Report.
Please note: This will not impact your Direct Claim Status (DCS) if you currently hold this. Also, you’ll still receive up to two external quality assurance reviews per group per session. These EQA reviews will focus solely on assessment and internal quality assurance sampling (rather than generic information covered under management systems and administrative arrangements / resources).
How will this affect current T Level providers?
If you’re a T Level provider, you may see a change in your allocated Quality Reviewer and there may be a change to your planned AMR date. Also, the contact for the AMR is changing to the Head of Centre rather than the Programme Contact for Technical Qualifications, to ensure all qualifications are covered as part of the review. Our Allocations team will be in touch if there are any changes and will confirm who your new Quality Reviewer is via email.
Every effort will be made to accommodate existing dates that are planned in – but if this isn’t possible, your Quality Reviewer will work with you to find a suitable alternative.