Regulatory effectiveness

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Dear Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation,

I have a number of questions about Ofqual and would be grateful if you could provide answers to these. Some of these requests fall under the Freedom of Information Act whereas others should be answerable in line with the Government’s best practice principles on regulatory transparency, stakeholder engagement and demonstration of the effectiveness of your regulatory framework and use of public funds.

1. On page 4 of your annual report 2012-13 you highlight that you have inherited “some poorly designed qualifications [and] market distortions”. Can you provide a list of specific qualifications which you know to be poorly designed and the market distortions that your regulatory framework has been designed to mitigate? Can you also explain your work to assess the impact these qualifications and distortions are having on the system and your plan of action to address these specific failures in line with your statutory objectives in relation to standards, assessment, confidence, awareness and efficiency?

2. On page 7 of your annual report you note that you “are continuing to develop our regulatory arrangements to make a reality of our risk-based approach to regulation”. Please can you describe your regulatory framework for risk-based regulation, in particular how you identify, assess, monitor, control and evaluate risks in the system and how you learn from, and adapt, your approach to reduce future risks? Please can also you demonstrate how your approach follows best practice, for example better regulation principles such as the Hampton principles?

3. On page 8 of your annual report, you state that Ofqual’s “main measure of confidence is our annual survey of perceptions of A levels”. A key part of public confidence is confidence in the regulator and its effectiveness. Please can you explain how you have sought feedback from stakeholders on their confidence in Ofqual as an organisation and their beliefs on your effectiveness and publicly provide the results of this feedback.

4. Please can you set out your programme of work over the next two years to meet your efficiency objective as mentioned on pages 9 – 10 of your annual report.

5. On page 10 of your annual report, you highlight that between 2012-13 and 2014-15 Ofqual’s budget will fall from £17.1m to £15.7m. You also highlight that you will increase the number of staff to around 200 by the end of 2013 – 14. Can you explain how you will achieve the 8.2% cost reduction alongside the increase in staff and confirm where pay reductions are necessary, these will be across the board including at chief executive, director and senior management level. If these cost reductions are not achieved through salary reductions, what other specific actions will be taken to reduce costs by £1.4m and how will this impact the delivery of your statutory objectives?

6. Table 5 and the explanatory text on page 15 of your annual report highlights that during 2012-13, 26 temporary staff were paid £2.532m (almost a fivefold increase from 2011-12). This equates to an average employment package of £97,380 p.a. per temporary person. Please can you explain:
• why it was necessary to pay such high packages to these temporary staff (given table 5 illustrates they were not consultants)
• what their jobs were
• what skills were required for these jobs
• what skills, qualifications and experience these 26 people brought
• how they were recruited (including the competitive tendering process undertaken)
• what output they produced
• how their effectiveness was assessed
• how much money was paid to recruitment agencies during the process
• the accountability mechanism for this spending on temporary staff
• who each temporary staff member directly reported to.

Please can you also confirm the package for the highest paid member of temporary staff at Ofqual during 2012-13 on an anonymised basis (given their salary was comparable, if not in excess of, that paid to the Chief Executive), and their skills, output and accountability.

7. On page 18 of the annual report, you highlight that 6.1% of staff at Ofqual are disabled. Please can you confirm that Ofqual’s office is fully accessible for disabled people, in particular that all rooms where meetings are held (including the Chief Executive’s office and board room), open plan areas, facilities and fire escapes are accessible by wheelchair users and suitable provisions have been made for individuals with other disabilities including for example blind and deaf employees and external visitors. Please also confirm that Ofqual’s health and safety policy documents set out appropriate processes for evacuation of all employees and visitors (non-disabled and disabled) in the event this is necessary.

8. On page 56 of your annual report, the net expenditure of the policy and engagement and risk and markets segments during 2012 – 13 was £2.862m. Please can you explain the key deliverables and outcomes achieved by these two segments and their contribution to Ofqual’s effectiveness in achieving its statutory objectives.

9. On page 58 of your annual report, you highlight that temporary staff in 2012 – 13 were employed to “assist with the implementation of organisational change”. The results of Ofqual’s civil service staff survey for 2012 (available at http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/imp...) show that only 13% of Ofqual employees believed that change was managed well (question B45) and only 26% believed changes were made for the better (question B46). As highlighted in question 6 above, each of these temporary staff was paid on average £97,380 p.a. Please explain why such high remuneration packages were justifiable given the staff survey showed such a poorly handled change process. Please can you explain where this went so wrong and the lessons learnt from this exercise.

10. Table 7.4 on page 60 of your annual report highlights that Ofqual paid £347k to allow 16 people to take voluntary redundancy, at a time when Ofqual was (and still is) clearly under-resourced given the plans for expansion of the workforce. Please can you explain with reference to their skills, qualifications, experience and length of service, why none of these people were suitable for any roles within the organisation. The £347k redundancy package would have paid for a considerable amount of retraining and could potentially have saved the costs of 16 of Ofqual’s temporary staff (the output and effectiveness of which, as highlighted in question 9 above, appears to be minimal). This redeployment would have equated to a saving to Ofqual of roughly £1m (even taking into account salary costs), which would have significantly helped the organisation to reduce taxpayer spend. Please can you explain how this was allowed to happen at a time of financial austerity.

11. Ofqual’s Corporate Plan 2012 – 15 sets out your priorities and plans over the coming years. Please can you explain your progress in relation to the following priorities and plans:
• Implementing changes arising from your QCF review (page 9)
• Reviewing promotional material from awarding organisations (page 10)
• Reviewing pricing structures (page 10)
• Working to improve incentives in the market (page 10)
• Reviewing the way you regulate (page 11)
• Developing the register of qualifications (page 11)
• Identifying and mitigating systemic risks (page 11)
• Tracking the burden of Ofqual’s requirements (page 12)
• Building capacity in operational regulation (page 12)
• Getting the best out of your staff through good management support and training (page 12)
• Making sure your capacity and capability best match what is needed (page 12)

12. Please can you provide impact assessments for all significant new regulations Ofqual has implemented or significantly changed over the last year. In particular, please can you provide the impact assessments for Ofqual’s policy to ban awarding organisation seminars for schools and for Ofqual’s policy to subsequently reinstate these seminars for schools, and explain the change in circumstances and new evidence available which led to the reversal of this decision.

13. Please can you provide an up-to-date organisation chart showing all jobs within Ofqual, those occupied by permanent staff, those occupied by temporary staff and all vacancies. Please can you indicate on the organisation chart the job title, job role, skill requirements and grade of each position.

14. Please can you confirm the date of Ofqual’s last skills audit, provide a summary of the key skills currently missing from the organisation, explain which roles these missing skills relate to and your plan of action to tackle these skill shortages.

15. Please can you provide details of Ofqual’s approach to assessing its managers’ skills in people management. In particular can you confirm the training in people management managers are offered and take-up. Can you also confirm whether Ofqual uses the best practice approach of 360 degree appraisals to enable managers to seek feedback on their people management skills from a representative selection of employees at all grades within the organisation.

16. Please can you explain the organisation’s understanding of the reasons for the extremely adverse performance of Ofqual in the 2012 civil service staff survey in comparison with the civil service benchmark (of the 71 questions in the survey, Ofqual performed below the civil service benchmark on 65 questions, http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/imp...). Can you explain what lessons are being learnt and what plans of action are in place to remedy the problems identified in the survey responses. Given the apparent low morale of the workforce, what impact is this having on Ofqual’s ability to meet its statutory requirements?

Yours faithfully,

Mr Robert Gardner

Ofqual FOI, Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation

Dear Mr Gardner

Thank you for your information request, made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) and received by Ofqual on 3 August 2012.

Your request will be processed in line with the Act.

Kind regards

Natalie Prosser
Head of Legal, Ofqual

• Office: 0300 303 3344
• 1410 Spring Place, Herald Avenue, Coventry Business Park• Coventry • West Midlands• CV5 6UB

www.ofqual.gov.uk • twitter.com/ofqual • www.facebook.com/ofqual

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Ofqual FOI, Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation

3 Attachments

Dear Mr Gardner

 

Further to your recent request for information, made under the Freedom of
Information Act, please find attached Ofqual’s response.

 

Kind regards

 

 

 

Alison Townsend
Ofqual

• Office: 0300 303 3344
• 1410 Spring Place, Herald Avenue, Coventry Business Park • Coventry •
West Midlands • CV5 6UB

[1]www.ofqual.gov.uk • [2]twitter.com/ofqual •
[3]www.facebook.com/ofqual

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References

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1. http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/
2. http://www.twitter.com/ofqual
3. http://www.facebook.com/ofqual