Consultation on guidance on malpractice and maladministration

We publish guidance to help awarding organisations understand how to comply with their Conditions of Recognition. This consultation reflects changes we intend to make to our existing guidance in relation to malpractice and maladministration. Our existing guidance in this space takes the form of positive and negative indicators. We propose to adopt a clearer, narrative style of guidance that covers all the Conditions relevant to malpractice and maladministration, incorporating the current guidance into this new version where appropriate.

Our proposed changes have been informed by a review of suspected and proven incidents of malpractice and maladministration and other relevant information, including the Report of the JCQ’s Independent Commission of Examination Malpractice.

The new guidance is designed, among other things, to help awarding organisations to better appreciate:

• the differences between malpractice and maladministration, and the implications of this
• how they might act to prevent malpractice and maladministration
• the factors they might wish to consider when deciding who should investigate alleged malpractice and maladministration
• the considerations they should have in mind when deciding what action to take once malpractice and maladministration has been established
• how several Conditions might interact in relation to malpractice and maladministration

This consultation will close on 16 October at 23:45.