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Annual Report and Accounts 2019-2020

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Annual Report and Accounts 2019-2020 Annual Report and Accounts 2019 to 2020 HC 412 1 2 Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) Annual Report and Accounts 2019−20 (For the year ended 31 March 2020) Accounts presented to the House of Commons pursuant to Section 6(4) of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 Annual Report presented to the House of Commons by Command of Her Majesty Annual Report and Accounts presented to the House of Lords by Command of Her Majesty Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 7 July 2020 HC 412 3 © Crown copyright 2020 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/ version/3 Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. This publication is available at www.gov.uk/ofqual. Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to us at: Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation Earlsdon Park 53-55 Butts Road Coventry CV1 3BH Telephone 0300 303 3344 HC 412 ISBN – 978-1-5286-2002-4 07/20 Ofqual/20/6632 CCS - CCS0620696730 Printed in the UK by the APS group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum 4 Contents Chair’s foreword.....................................................................................................6 Performance report................................................................................................7 Overview................................................................................................................7 Chief Regulator’s review of the year.....................................................................10 Goal 1: Regulate for the validity and safe delivery of general qualifications.......................................................................................................12 Goal 2: Regulate for the validity and safe delivery of national technical and vocational qualifications and assessments.....................................29 Goal 3: Regulate for the validity and safe delivery of vocational and other regulated qualifications........................................................41 Goal 4: Monitor and evaluate the validity of National Assessments........................................................................................................50 Goal 5: Promote innovation and an effective and efficient regulated qualifications market............................................................................56 Goal 6: Develop and manage our people, resources and systems.........................59 Equalities.............................................................................................................63 Financial review....................................................................................................72 Accountability report............................................................................................80 Corporate governance report................................................................................81 Remuneration and staff report............................................................................102 Parliamentary accountability and audit report.....................................................116 The certificate and report of the comptroller and auditor general to the House of Commons..................................................................................124 Financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2020....................................128 5 Chair’s foreword I would like to begin this report by expressing my gratitude. In the past few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended all our lives. On Wednesday 18th March, the Prime Minister announced that schools would close to all but vulnerable children and children of critical workers, and summer 2020’s exams would be cancelled; but that grades would still be awarded to support student progression. Schools and colleges have been working in unprecedented circumstances to provide centre as- sessment grades and rank orders which awarding organisations will standardise so students can be issued with grades for general qualifications such as GCSEs, AS, A levels and national technical and vocational qualifications this summer. Exceptional arrangements have also been made for a wide range of other qualifications. We have been working intensively with stakeholders and experts from across the education and skills system to establish and oversee the fairest possible system for as many students as possible this summer. As I write, work continues apace to ensure this year’s awarding works as effectively as possible. I am grateful to all the people and organisations who have helped us work out the best possible arrangements for this summer – those from across the education, skills and awarding system, students, parents and members of the public who have responded to our consultations, and organisations and individuals who have provided us with advice. Our gratitude is owed particularly to all those working in and with the teaching profession; from classroom teachers and trainers to heads, leaders and support staff. In the most disrupted of circumstances, they are working tirelessly and in ways never before required, not only to support students, but also to support the effective operation of the qualifications system, upon which young people’s futures rely. We are enormously grateful. This report sets out how we have delivered on our objectives and spent our income for the year from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020. It covers the range of our usual regulatory activities, from overseeing summer 2019’s exams to delivering key activities as part of the government’s skills reform programme, such as accrediting the first new qualifications for T Levels, introducing new Functional Skills qualifications and developing our regulation of apprenticeship assessments. It also sets out the actions we took in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the final weeks of the 2019-20 year. To those young people and students affected by the cancellation of exams and assessments this year – we recognise the significant disruption you have faced and we have heard and understood the anxiety this has caused many of you. We want you to know that your needs are at the heart of every decision we make and that we, with others, are doing all we can to make sure grades are awarded fairly this year. Roger Taylor Chair 29 June 2020 6 Performance report Overview In this section, we outline Ofqual’s role and provide an assessment of our performance against our goals and objectives over the reporting period. Ofqual’s role Ofqual is the independent qualifications regulator for England. At the end of March 2020, we regulated 161 awarding organisations, and nearly 15,000 qualifications. These include GCSEs, AS and A levels, Functional Skills, Technical Qualifications in T Levels and a wide range of other qualifications. By the end of March 2020, we were providing external quality assurance (EQA) for 74 new apprenticeship assessment standards. 7 Statutory objectives and duties Ofqual has five statutory objectives, which are set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. In brief, they are: 1. to secure qualification standards; 2. to promote National Assessment standards; 3. to promote public confidence in regulated qualifications and National Assessment arrangements; 4. to promote awareness of the range and benefits of regulated qualifications; and 5. to secure that regulated qualifications are provided efficiently. We have a wide range of other duties and publish separate documents addressing some of these, such as those related to regulatory burden. Key activities Our key activities and outputs for the reporting year included the following: 1. Standards were maintained in the 6.1 million GCSEs, AS and A levels awarded to 1.3 million students in summer 2019; the majority of these qualifications were newly or recently reformed; 2. We accredited the first new Technical Qualifications for T Levels in education and childcare, construction and digital, ready for teaching from September 2020; 3. We completed Functional Skills reform, overseeing successful awarding of the first new Functional Skills English and maths qualifications in early 2020; 4. Public understanding of the 9–1 grading scale for GCSEs continued to improve, with parental understanding up to 85% from 73% in our annual survey; 5. We issued over £0.4m in fines to awarding organisations for serious breaches of our rules, including fining the exam board, AQA, £350,000 for serious breaches of our rules on marking reviews and moderation and requiring them to provide £735,000 compensation to affected schools and colleges; 6. Our regulation of apprenticeship end-point assessments (EPAs) grew to 50% of the market (619 of 1236 EPAs) and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (the Institute) proposed to expand our role to cover all EPAs outside of Higher Education; 7. We introduced new rules and guidance to ensure all awarding organisations effectively quality assure centre-based assessment to be as accurate and consistent as possible; 8. We published our first Qualification Price Index report, an annual dataset showing price movements in the regulated qualifications market; and 9. In the last few weeks of the financial
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