Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) (Amendment) Act 2019

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Amendment of section 27 of Principal Act (Quality assurance)

7. Section 27 of the Principal Act is amended:

(a) by the insertion of the following subsections after subsection (1):

“(1A) As soon as practicable after the commencement of section 7 of the Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) (Amendment) Act 2019, the Authority shall issue guidelines for the establishment of procedures by listed awarding bodies under section 55F(2).

(1B) The power under this section of the Authority—

(a) to issue quality assurance guidelines, or any other guidelines, and

(b) to establish effectiveness review procedures, or any other procedures,

includes, respectively, the power of the Authority to amend any of the foregoing guidelines, or issue guidelines to replace existing such guidelines, and the power of the Authority to amend any of the foregoing procedures, or establish procedures to replace existing such procedures.

(1C) In consequence of what is provided in the preceding subsection, a reference in this section to ‘issue’ or ‘issuing’, in respect of guidelines, or ‘establish’ or ‘establishing’, in respect of procedures, includes a reference, as the case may be—

(a) to ‘amend’ or to ‘amending’, or

(b) to do, or to the doing of, the act of issuing or establishing, as appropriate, guidelines or procedures by way of replacement of existing guidelines or procedures.”,

(b) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (4):

“(4A) Where—

(a) quality assurance guidelines and effectiveness review procedures apply to providers, and

(b) any or all of those providers are education and training boards or other bodies engaged in the provision of further education and training programmes, to whom moneys have been advanced under section 21 of the Further Education and Training Act 2013 ,

the Authority shall consult with Solas before issuing those guidelines and establishing those review procedures.”,

and

(c) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (6):

“(6) The Authority may—

(a) issue different quality assurance guidelines for different relevant, linked or associated providers, or groups of relevant, linked or associated providers,

(b) issue different quality assurance guidelines for different classes of programmes or different types of provision, and

(c) establish different effectiveness review procedures for different relevant, linked or associated providers or groups of relevant, linked or associated providers.”.