MOUNTAIN TRAINING ENGLAND Quality Assurance comes out on top

In a recent audit Mountain Training England were able to provide OfQual with Substantial Assurance that we are doing an excellent job in the delivery of our quality assurance processes.

OfQual’s General Conditions of Recognition guarantee the industry standard for academic and vocational qualifications across England and Northern Ireland. OfQual’s requirements cover every detail of qualification provision, from the governance of the awarding organisation to the design and development of the qualifications to the layout of the pass certificates we send to successful candidates.
OfQual works with Mountain Training England to preserve the interests of our candidates. For instance:

We guarantee that we won’t withdraw a qualification without providing an appropriate alternative e.g. Single Pitch Award holders are now Rock Climbing Instructors.
We regularly review our qualifications to ensure they are current and fit for purpose.
We moderate courses to ensure consistent and accurate delivery of our syllabuses.

OfQual’s standards form the basis of our quality assurance practice. We are really pleased that we received such a positive audit report and we will continue to work to improve our QA systems to the benefit of all our candidates.

Full report

Mountain Training England is an Awarding Organisation recognised by OfQual, the organisation that regulates academic and vocational qualifications in England and Wales.

We recently participated in an audit conducted by OfQual. The focus of the audit was our Quality Assurance systems. OfQual focused on four elements of the Quality Assurance process:

Our requirements in terms of course provision and reporting;
Our provider approval process;
Our systems of monitoring our agreements with approved providers; and
Our ability to enforce our agreements with approved providers.

Two members of OfQual staff visited our Siabod Cottage office for two full days. They interviewed our Quality Assurance staff, reviewed examples of course reports, moderation reports, screening committee reports and board minutes. They also had a walkthrough of the Candidate Management System and the whole process enabled them to see how the Quality Assurance process works, from application and approval to course delivery and moderation.

The results of the audit were expressed in terms of assurance that we are likely to be compliant with OfQual’s requirements of Awarding Organisations. The assurance is described in four levels:

Substantial Assurance
Adequate Assurance
Limited Assurance
No Assurance

We were judged to offer Substantial Assurance to OfQual on three of the elements listed above and Adequate assurance on one element.
We found the audit process to be a positive one, in that we also gained assurance that our QA systems, which are internally generated and applied, are considered to be sound and robust by an external organisation whose expertise is in the regulation of qualifications across all industry sectors and across the academic/vocational range.

MTE’s Executive Officer, Guy Jarvis, commented, ‘Mountain Training England welcomes the opportunity to work with OfQual’s audit team on this project and we are delighted with the outcome, which verifies the strength of our quality assurance systems.’

The following Mountain Training England qualifications are currently regulated by OfQual: