Circular letter CL16/04

Number	CL 16/04
Subject	Supplement to the Handbook for institutional audit: England. Collaborative provision audit
Publication date	Monday 20 December 2004
Recipients	Heads of all subscribing institutions Senior quality contacts Partner organisations
Of interest to	All with an interest in collaborative provision
Further information	Nicola Channon n.channon@qaa.ac.uk
Response date	N/A
Respond to	N/A
Attachments	Supplement to the Handbook for institutional audit: England. Collaborative provision audit

Dear colleague

Supplement to the Handbook for institutional audit: England. Collaborative provision audit

Outcomes of the Agency's consultation

In September of this year we consulted on our proposals for a supplement to the Handbook for institutional audit: England to address the separate audit of arrangements for collaborative provision. The consultation ended at the beginning of November and I am now writing to you with a summary of the comments we received together with our responses. As with the earlier consultation on the draft operational description, we are grateful to the institutions and bodies which responded to this consultation for their constructive comments and advice.

Among the matters raised in the responses to the consultation were the criteria which will lead us to suggest a separate collaborative provision audit (CPA); a view that too short an interval between the briefing visit and the audit visit had been allowed for visits to partner institutions; uncertainties about how Teaching Quality Information (TQI) would be used to support CPA; concerns with respect to our references to the use of independent external peers in the approval of new partners; and concerns that, for affected institutions, the combination of a main institutional audit with a CPA could constitute an unreasonable burden.

We recognise that institutions wish to understand how and why we come to a decision to propose a separate CPA. On this matter, our chief concern is to ensure that any audit we undertake can be properly managed and come to a sound judgement. If, in our considered view, the inclusion of collaborative provision (CP) in an institutional audit would place unreasonable pressure on the institution itself, or its partners, or require the audit team to spread its attention too widely to reach well-supported conclusions, we will propose a separate CPA. As noted in the supplement, any such proposal will arise through or after the preliminary meeting for the institutional audit.

On the practical handling of CPA, including arrangements for partner visits, we wish to assure awarding institutions participating in a CPA that we will work closely with them from an early stage to plan the partner visits, and that the six weeks separation between the briefing visit and the audit visit should be understood as 'working weeks' (that is, excluding periods of closure in the partner and the awarding institution). Some of our other audit-based processes share several features with CPA and our experience over several years leads us to the view that our proposals for the conduct of partner visits will be fully practicable.

Since we began our consultation on CPA in September, institutions have asked for further clarity on how TQI will be used in institutional audit from January 2005. The present position is set out in a Circular Letter which was placed on our web site on 15 October (Circular Letter CL 13/04). As the HERO TQI site comes fully on-line, we will continue to keep institutions informed of our thinking on the use of TQI in CPA.

Several responses to the consultation indicated concern that the proposed supplement was out of step with the terms of the Code in Section 2: Collaborative provision and flexible and distributed learning (including e-learning) in suggesting the involvement of external persons in the approval of new partners. We are grateful for these observations and we have amended Section 2 of Appendix 3 of the Supplement accordingly.

Lastly, we fully understand the concern of several respondents that participating in a separate CPA will constitute an additional burden for them. This will undoubtedly be so, but, in view of the large number of students in England (and overseas) whose access to higher education is, and will continue to be, through CP, it seems essential to us, in the collective interest of all involved in UK higher education, to maintain external scrutiny of such arrangements to help to underpin confidence in their soundness.

Finalised Supplement to the Handbook for institutional audit: England. Collaborative provision audit

With the amendments noted above, with respect to Section 2 of Appendix 3 of the draft Supplement, we have now finalised the Supplement, the text of which can be found on the Agency's web site at www.qaa.ac.uk/public/inst_audit_hbook/collaborative/contents.htm

Any further enquiries should be sent to my colleague Mrs Nicola Channon at QAA (n.channon@qaa.ac.uk) who will be pleased to advise.

With best wishes

Yours sincerely

Peter Williams

Chief Executive