Accreditation Coordination Group (ACG)

Role

The primary role of ACG is to make group decisions in relation to awarding bodies and the qualifications they offer. This includes:

1. Awarding body approval
2. Awarding body quality assurance issues including audit outcomes, audit reports and action plans
3. Provider monitoring reports, their outcomes, recommendations and impact on awarding body quality assurance measures
4. New qualifications, Amendments, extensions and withdrawals of existing accredited qualifications

The Accreditation Coordination Group Standing Orders are available to download.

To enable decisions, papers on these submissions are prepared and presented by Regulation Managers (1 & 2), Regulation Officers (3) and Accreditation Managers (4).

ACG also approves qualification-related submissions from standards setting organisations, including:

• Qualification products comprising qualifications structures, assessment strategies and principles and Core Skills signposting documents
• SCQF credit rating

ACG meets weekly on Wednesdays. Once minutes have been approved from the previous week, decision lists are published.

Membership

ACG is made up of five core members of staff from SQA Accreditation:

• Head of Accreditation
• Senior Accreditation Manager
• Senior Regulation Manager
• Accreditation Officer
• Information & Research Manager

Of these, at least one of the first three must be in attendance for decisions to be confirmed and ratified.

On a rota basis, one Accreditation Manager and one Regulation Manager or Regulation Officer will also attend each meeting.

The Appeals Process: Information for awarding bodies / Standard Setting Organisations indicates how you can make an appeal if you are dissatisfied about an ACG decision.