OCR Criteria for Verified Qualifications (revised August 2021)

The OCR Criteria for Verified Qualifications has been updated and the new version is now available on the OCR website. Compliance with these criteria is a requirement for all centres delivering OCR verified qualifications. The new version replaces the 2014 version and the differences are highlighted in yellow.

While the criteria is unchanged the new version provides additional clarity and guidance to centres and OCR’s external quality assurers (EQAs). This includes more detail around the:

• types of evidence that must be and/or could be seen by the EQA to demonstrate the centre’s compliance with the criteria;
• scenarios which will result in the EQA disagreeing that the centre has met the criteria;
• levels of sanctions available to the EQA if a centre is not fully compliant with the criteria.

Where changes to the sanction levels have been made these reflect the level of risk to learner progression and/or of OCR issuing invalid certificates.

Criterion IV6 – “Learner information and details of achievements are complete and accurate, and retained and transmitted in line with OCR’s requirements” has been expanded to include the additional quality assurance process for direct claims status (DCS) certification claims. This new process, for DCS centres only, is undertaken by OCR (not the EQA) between EQA visits. It has been developed to make sure OCR meet the new Ofqual regulations requiring all awarding organisations to follow the same standards for Centre Assessment Standards Strategy (CASS). For more details please see our subject information update.

Any centre delivering an OCR verified qualification should make sure staff involved in the delivery of the qualification(s) are familiar with the new version of the OCR Criteria for Verified Qualifications updated in August 2021. OCR EQAs will use this new version for all quality assurance visits from 1 September 2021.

If you have any queries about this update, please call our Customer Support Centre on 01223 553998 or email support@ocr.org.uk.