Summary of roles and responsibilities

This section summarises the key roles and responsibilities of component awarding bodies and Diploma awarding bodies, reflecting the obligations under the recognition requirements and the operating rules for those awarding organisations. There is also a summary of the roles of the Diploma aggregation service (DAS) and centres. However, these regulatory arrangements do not apply directly to the Diploma aggregation service or to centres.

Component awarding bodies

• Component awarding bodies are recognised as being able to offer and award constituent qualifications that contribute to Diploma qualifications. The Diploma catalogues show the constituent qualifications.¹
• Component awarding bodies propose which of their qualifications they want the Diploma catalogues to include.
• Component awarding bodies supply Diploma learners’ results to the Diploma aggregation service, referenced by the verified unique learner number (ULN).
• Component awarding bodies demonstrate their compatibility with the Diploma aggregation service to meet Ofqual’s requirements for the awarding of constituent qualifications in the Diploma.

Diploma awarding bodies

• Diploma awarding bodies award and certificate whole Diploma qualifications for the lines of learning for which they are recognised when aggregated and supplied by the Diploma aggregation service.
• Diploma awarding bodies produce the Diploma transcript for award of the Diploma. The Diploma aggregation service supplies the data for the transcript.
• Diploma awarding bodies demonstrate their compatibility with the Diploma aggregation service to meet Ofqual’s requirements for awarding Diploma qualifications.
• To operate as a Diploma awarding body, an awarding organisation has to offer and award one or more constituent qualifications that can contribute to the lines of learning for which they are recognised. Therefore, all Diploma awarding bodies must also be recognised as component awarding bodies.
• To be recognised as a Diploma awarding body for a line of learning, an awarding organisation has to operate at all levels of that line of learning. However, as a component awarding body, it will only have to offer a qualification at one level for that line of learning.

Diploma aggregation service

• The Diploma aggregation service is designed to enable the data sharing, results aggregation, grading and supporting functions required for the operation of the Diploma as a composite qualification.
• The Diploma aggregation service:
  • enables the home centre²to open and access a learner account for each of its learners
  • uses the ULN as the identifier for recording and aggregating learners’ achievements
  • supplies and aggregates the results data for the Diploma certificate and for the Diploma transcript to the Diploma awarding body so that it can make an award.

Centres

The following list is limited to those centres’ roles and responsibilities that are relevant to the requirements set out in these regulatory arrangements.

• Home centres obtain verified unique learner numbers (ULNs) and open learner accounts with the Diploma aggregation service for all their Diploma learners. They also create a Diploma learner study plan for each Diploma learner.
• Home centres are responsible for ensuring the use of the verified ULN and up-to-date personal details for each learner across the centre consortium. They monitor the learner account to ensure the Diploma aggregation service holds the correct results.
• Home centres are responsible for notifying the Diploma aggregation service that a learner has met the requirements for personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS) and has completed their work experience.
• Home centres receive the trial grade for each of its learners who are eligible to be awarded a Diploma. The centre can submit an intention to claim which will automatically claim the Diploma on behalf of a learner as soon as a trial grade is calculated, or it may choose to claim the Diploma manually if it wants to review the trial grade before an award is made.
• The centre consortium must have a responsible person who ensures the standardisation of internal assessment for principal learning and project qualifications across their different assessors and assessment sites.

1. The Diploma catalogues provide information on all of the Diploma qualifications and the constituent qualifications for award of the Diplomas: http://www.accreditedqualifications.org.uk/index.aspx. [↩]
2. There is only one home centre for each learner. The home centre is where a learner is enrolled or registered. This centre has overall responsibility for each learner's Diploma and their learner account on the Diploma aggregations service (DAS). [↩]