'Guidance' ousts 'compliance' at QAA

The legacy of former Quality Assurance Agency chief executive John Randall was all but swept away this week when it was confirmed that his "standards infrastructure" will be downgraded to mere guidance.

The code of practice for quality assurance, incorporating hundreds of new rules, and the national "subject benchmark statements" setting out minimum standards for courses will become non-compulsory elements of the new QAA audit regime. The qualifications framework, governing the nomenclature and level of every higher education award, will be applied more loosely than Mr Randall had planned.

The confirmation came in the QAA's draft handbook for institutional audit, a consultation document that spells out how the new audit regime, agreed by ministers in March, is likely to work. The system of six-yearly institution-wide audits, which will be introduced from 2002-03, replaces the system of universal inspection at subject level.

The handbook confirms that QAA auditors will not seek "evidence of compliance" with the codes, benchmarks and framework, which critics said threatened institutional autonomy.

Instead, QAA audit teams will seek "evidence that the institution has considered the purpose of the reference points, has reflected on its own practicesI and has taken, or is taking, any necessary steps to ensure that appropriate changes are being introduced".

Auditors will deliver one of three overall judgements after an audit, expressed in terms of the confidence they have in the university's arrangements for assuring quality. They will be "broad", "limited" or "no" confidence. A separate judgement will be made on "the reliance that can reasonably be placed on the accuracy, integrity, completeness and frankness of the information that the institution publishes about the quality of its programmes and the standards of its awards".

There must be evidence that "independent external persons" have been used in institutions' internal review of programmes. Any necessary action will be described as "essential", "advisable" or "desirable".