Consultation outcome

Decisions: ​​Introducing principles into the General Conditions of Recognition​

Updated 4 September 2025

Introduction

Ofqual proposed to introduce a new Condition, referred to as the Principles Condition, into the General Conditions of Recognition. 

The proposed Principles Condition contained 6 overarching principles that reflect the underlying expectations that exist in the General Conditions. It also explained how the principles should be interpreted and how they relate to the existing General Conditions. 

We also proposed to introduce statutory guidance to support the Principles Condition to help awarding organisations understand the principles. 

Our consultation was open from 6 November 2024 until 12 February 2025 and received 49 responses. A full summary and analysis of the responses has been published at the same time as these decisions.

Summary of decisions

Implementing the principles in the General Conditions of Recognition

To enhance Ofqual’s regulatory framework, help ensure a consistent understanding of our rules and make their underlying expectations clear, we have decided to introduce the Principles Condition, which includes the 6 principles, as consulted on, into the General Conditions. The principles are:

• Principle 1 – An awarding organisation must act with honesty and integrity.
• Principle 2 – An awarding organisation must treat Learners fairly by acting and taking decisions with due impartiality and based on appropriate evidence.
• Principle 3 – An awarding organisation must ensure that each qualification that it makes available, or proposes to make available is, and continues to be, fit for the purposes for which it is intended.
• Principle 4 – An awarding organisation must act in a way that maintains and, where possible, promotes public confidence in qualifications.
• Principle 5 – An awarding organisation must act in an open, transparent and co-operative manner with Ofqual and, as appropriate, with Users of qualifications.
• Principle 6 – An awarding organisation must conduct its activities with a proactive approach to compliance with its Conditions of Recognition.

These will be incorporated though the Principles Condition, which will appear at the beginning of the General Conditions. We will also introduce the statutory guidance on which we consulted, subject to some amendments to the guidance to Principle 2, which we explain in this document.

The final version of the Principles Condition and its supporting statutory guidance have been published alongside this document. 

The Principles Condition and supporting guidance will come into force on 4 December 2025.

Supporting understanding of the Principles Condition – advice notes     

Some respondents requested additional guidance and case studies to help them better understand the Principles Condition, how Ofqual would make decisions about whether an awarding organisation was meeting it, and how it would be enforced. 

To address this feedback and support understanding of the Principles Condition, we have decided to publish the following advice notes:

Principles advice note – this will provide case studies and examples of how each principle will work in practice and how Ofqual will decide whether an awarding organisation is meeting a principle. It provides further information about interpretation of the Principles Condition and the interaction between the Principles Condition and the existing General Conditions.

Investigation and decision-making advice note – this will provide further detail on how Ofqual investigates and takes decisions in relation to potential non-compliance with an awarding organisation’s Conditions of Recognition. This advice note will set out the approach Ofqual takes for all conditions, including the Principles Condition.

Advice notes are not statutory guidance and awarding organisations do not need to have regard to them when deciding how to comply with their Conditions of Recognition. They explain aspects of Ofqual’s regulation to support understanding and application of Ofqual’s regulatory framework. We explain how we use advice notes, and the specific advice notes we are publishing, later in this document.

We have published our advice notes alongside these decisions. We intend to keep these advice notes under review and welcome any feedback on their content.

Evidencing and reporting compliance

Awarding organisations queried how they would be expected to evidence compliance with the Principles Condition, and what Ofqual would expect them to report as part of the annual statement of compliance process. Awarding organisations were concerned that collating evidence of how they had complied with the Principles Condition would create additional regulatory burden for them.

We recognise awarding organisations have concerns about the potential burden of reporting against the Principles Condition. To address this feedback, Ofqual has clarified its expectations in relation to the statement of compliance and event notification  processes for the Principles Condition. We explain this in more detail later in the document.

Detailed decisions

Proposals

We proposed to introduce the Principles Condition. This contained 6 overarching principles (set out earlier in this document) and explained how these should be interpreted. We proposed that awarding organisations would be required to meet the Principles Condition by operating in a manner that reflects the principles. 

We also proposed to introduce statutory guidance to support the Principles Condition, to help awarding organisations understand the principles.

Consultation feedback

We have published a detailed analysis of consultation responses alongside this document. Across all respondents, there was recognition that the principles reflect appropriate standards and behaviours to be expected of awarding organisations. Respondents agreed that, for example, awarding organisations acting with honesty and integrity and treating Learners fairly are the right things to do. A number of respondents supported the proposal to implement the Principles Condition.

While it was recognised that the Principles Condition set out appropriate behaviours to expect of awarding organisations, there were concerns from awarding organisations about how they would work in practice and how they would be incorporated into Ofqual’s regulatory framework, including:

• how to interpret them consistently, particularly where subjective language is used
• the interaction between Principles Condition and existing General Conditions
• how to measure and evidence compliance with the Principles Condition, including as part of the annual statement of compliance
• how the Principles Condition will be used in enforcement
• the potential for increased regulatory burden.

Concerns in the areas above led to some awarding organisations suggesting we should not proceed with implementing the Principles Condition. Some respondents suggested alternative approaches to implementing the principles, including updating existing General Conditions and/or statutory guidance.

Implementing the principles in the General Conditions of Recognition

Having considered the feedback, we have decided to implement the Principles Condition, which includes the 6 principles as consulted on, and the statutory guidance, into our regulatory framework. We have decided to make amendments to the guidance for Principle 2 which we explain in the statutory guidance section below. 

Respondents, including awarding organisations, said the principles reflect appropriate standards and behaviours to expect of awarding organisations. Ofqual exists to protect the interests of students who take qualifications, and employers and others who use and rely on them. It is important our regulations allow us to act in these interests in the most effective way possible. The Principles Condition is a proportionate and effective way to enhance our regulatory framework, helping to secure those behaviours respondents agreed were right to expect of regulated awarding organisations. 

The Principles Condition will help ensure a consistent understanding of our rules and of Ofqual’s expectations of awarding organisations, by making the underlying expectations of the General Conditions clear. They will also help those who are indirectly impacted by our framework and who do not necessarily have a detailed understanding of it (for example students and centres), to understand more about the broad behaviours Ofqual expects of awarding organisations and the rules they are required to meet.

This use of principles reflects developments in regulatory approaches in other sectors and will help ensure our regulatory framework is effective both now and in the future. We have set out in our corporate strategy our objective to strengthen the performance, capacity and resilience of the market and in particular, to ensure our regulatory toolkit remains fit for purpose and our regulatory tools are effectively and efficiently deployed. The introduction of the Principles Condition into our framework is an important part of this work.

A particular benefit of the Principles Condition will be to improve the resilience of our framework, to enable awarding organisations, and Ofqual, to respond quickly and effectively to new, unexpected, or novel situations. There has been an increase in the pace of change in the sector in recent years due to factors such as technological development, and the Principles Condition will provide guidelines within which to take decisions as such scenarios arise. In some cases, the Principles Condition alone might be sufficient to provide the framework within which to take decisions and negate the need to put in place additional detailed rules. In others, even where further rules may ultimately be required, the Principles Condition will provide a structure for operating during any period where such rules are being developed.

The Principles Condition will also help support public confidence in qualifications and the wider sector. While respondents agreed the Principles Condition set out behaviours that were right to expect of awarding organisations, and which in many cases were being demonstrated, Ofqual has seen instances where this may not be the case. Including the principles, which reflect these expectations in the Principles Condition, ensures they have the same status and importance as other aspects of our regulatory framework. As well as making Ofqual’s expectations of awarding organisations clear, the Principles Condition means we can take action where these behaviours are not being demonstrated.

Awarding organisations commented that aspects of the Principles Condition and statutory guidance contained subjective language which could be difficult to interpret and apply consistently. They also said that overlap between the Principles Condition and other General Conditions could cause confusion. Respondents also wanted to know how Ofqual would enforce the Principles Condition. 

We do not consider these points a reason not to implement the Principles Condition. The use of language that can be viewed as subjective is not unique to the Principles Condition and is intended to ensure Ofqual’s Conditions can be applied to a range of contexts and scenarios. Similarly, the need to consider Conditions, not only in isolation, but to balance their requirements with those of other Conditions exists elsewhere in our framework. We do not intend that our enforcement approach for the Principles Condition will differ from any other General Condition and do not intend to use the Principles Condition to seek to increase the volume of our enforcement activity. We do though recognise the importance of ensuring an accurate and consistent understanding of the Principles Condition and how Ofqual will investigate potential non-compliance with it, or any other Condition. We have therefore decided to support this by publishing advice notes to help clarify these points, which we explain later in this document. 

Respondents suggested other ways in which they thought the benefits of the principles could be achieved, for example amending the General Conditions to incorporate the expectations set out in the Principles Condition against each relevant condition. While it would be possible to do this, it would lead to significant changes throughout the General Conditions, and likely need small changes to the majority of conditions, which would be more burdensome and disruptive than introducing a single condition. Our view is that such an approach would lead to the expectations of the principles being fragmented throughout the General Conditions, making it less clear what is expected than it would be by including them in one place.

Another suggestion was to provide additional statutory guidance incorporating the expectations in the Principles Condition without having a new condition itself. To do this, such guidance would need to attach to a condition and it is Ofqual’s view that existing statutory guidance would have required amending across multiple General Conditions to achieve this. Ofqual considers that this approach would have been more disruptive and burdensome than implementing a single Principles Condition with related guidance, as well as being less clear. Furthermore, awarding organisations would be required to have regard to, rather than comply with statutory guidance, and it is Ofqual’s position that it is important we can take action where the principles are not met, meaning it is essential for them to be a condition in our framework. 

Statutory guidance

We have decided to implement the statutory guidance on which we consulted, subject to some amendments to the guidance to Principle 2, which we describe below. This guidance will help awarding organisations understand the requirements of the Principles Condition. 

We have decided to make minor changes to the proposed guidance to Principle 2. These aim to address concerns from respondents that this principle could be pursued by users as a ‘catch-all’ to raise concerns about any decision with which they disagreed, by claiming to have been treated unfairly. We understand awarding organisations will need to take difficult and sometimes contested decisions, which not all may perceive as fair. The updated guidance makes clear that the requirement to treat Learners fairly is focused on the actions and decisions taken by an awarding organisation to meet its regulatory requirements. The changes also clarify that it is important that an awarding organisation’s decisions and actions have considered the extent to which its approach could result in unfairness to Learners, for example, from particular backgrounds or with particular protected characteristics.

We will be adopting the remaining guidance unchanged.

We received requests from respondents to provide more detailed guidance for the Principles Condition, including case studies and examples of how the principles would work in practice. We agree that examples will be helpful in ensuring the Principles Condition is understood. We have decided however not to provide additional statutory guidance, which awarding organisations would be required to have regard to, as we think that the proposed statutory guidance already sets sufficient detail to support awarding organisations to understand and interpret the Principles Condition. We will instead issue an advice note providing further detail, examples and case studies to support awarding organisations’ understanding and application of the Principles Condition. The provision of the new advice note will complement the statutory guidance by providing a different tool to support understanding, allowing Ofqual to provide advisory positions and examples of how the principles will work in practice. Advice notes are not binding on awarding organisations in the way that they must have regard to statutory guidance. Advice notes can be referred to by awarding organisations where needed, but there is no obligation on them to do so.

We explain advice notes in more detail in the next section. 

Supporting understanding of the Principles Condition – advice notes

As described in the earlier section, awarding organisations said that some aspects of the Principles Condition and statutory guidance contained subjective language which could be difficult to understand and apply consistently. They also commented on the way the Principles Condition would interact with other General Conditions, saying overlap could lead to confusion. Awarding organisations requested additional information and case studies to help them understand the Principles Condition, and information about how Ofqual would enforce the Principles Condition. 

While we do not consider these concerns will prevent the Principles Condition being accurately and consistently applied, we recognise, particularly in light of the Principles Condition being new, the importance of ensuring it is understood by awarding organisations. It is also important they understand how Ofqual will consider potential breaches of the Principles Condition. While we have set already that we do not intend to use the Principles Condition to seek to increase the volume of our enforcement activity, we recognise that it would be helpful to provide additional information about how we will investigate potential breaches and how we will make decisions relating to this.

We have decided to publish the following advice notes:

Principles advice note. This will provide additional information about how the Principles Condition will work in practice, examples and case studies, to support awarding organisations in understanding the principles. This advice note will be specific to the Principles Condition.

Investigation and decision-making advice note. This will provide further detail on how Ofqual investigates and takes decisions in relation to potential non-compliance with an awarding organisation’s Conditions of Recognition. This advice note will set out the approach Ofqual takes for all conditions, including the Principles Condition.

We have published these advice notes alongside these decisions. We want to make sure our advice notes meet the needs of awarding organisations to help them understand our requirements and intend therefore that advice notes will be kept under review and updated as required, as the Principles Condition becomes more embedded. With this in mind, we would encourage awarding organisations to provide feedback on these advice notes, which we will consider as part of future updates.

Evidencing and reporting compliance

Awarding organisations also raised concerns about how to evidence and report compliance with the Principles Condition, and the potential for doing so to create additional regulatory burden. In particular, these concerns related to Ofqual’s annual statement of compliance process. We set out below our expectations in relation to the statement of compliance, as well as event notifications, for which awarding organisations may also report against the Principles Condition. Cumulatively these approaches minimise the extent to which an awarding organisation is required to report to Ofqual on its compliance with the Principles Condition.

Statement of compliance

Ofqual’s statement of compliance process is the mechanism by which awarding organisations report annually on their ongoing compliance against the conditions to which they are subject. Awarding organisations were concerned, given the overarching nature of the Principles Condition, that it could become burdensome to collate evidence and report to Ofqual on compliance with the Principles Condition. It was suggested that in many cases, evidence of compliance would be likely through there being no evidence of being non-compliant, rather than evidence of compliance.

We recognise awarding organisations have concerns about the potential burden of reporting against the Principles Condition. In line with the approach taken elsewhere in our regulatory framework, awarding organisations will be required, where they are not fully compliant with their Conditions of Recognition, or do not believe they will be in the future, to report this in their Statement of Compliance. This expectation will apply to the Principles Condition. We have however reflected carefully on how this is implemented in practice through the way in which we ask organisations to complete their annual Statement of Compliance.Ofqual’s expectations for reporting against the Principles Condition are therefore as follows:

• for the 2025 to 2026 statement of compliance, awarding organisations will not need to declare compliance or non-compliance against the Principles Condition. Given the timelines for this statement of compliance, awarding organisations will not have time to familiarise themselves with the Principles Condition, in order to meaningfully report on compliance.

For future years:

• as with all other conditions, the statement of compliance will not require awarding organisations to give details of how they are compliant with the Principles Condition; they are only required to describe details of non-compliance or potential non-compliance. However, as distinct from the approach with other conditions, we will require reporting against the Principles Condition by exception only, and will not normally expect awarding organisations to declare non-compliance against the Principles Condition in isolation. We will though expect that where another condition has been breached, an awarding organisation considers whether it has also breached, or is likely to breach, the Principles Condition, and where it has, to report this.
• we would expect an awarding organisation to report against the Principles Condition in isolation only where it believes there has been a breach of the Principles Condition on its own, with no other condition being breached. We would not expect such instances to be common as, in many cases, a breach of the Principles Condition would relate to a breach of another condition.
• where the Principles Condition is relied on in a new, unexpected or novel scenario not covered by other conditions and it is breached, we would expect that to be reported.

Event notifications

Event notifications were not raised by respondents as a specific concern. However, as we considered the position for the statement of compliance, we thought it would be helpful to clarify the position in relation to event notifications as well. 

In line with the approach taken for all event notifications, an awarding organisation will be required to notify Ofqual where an incident has occurred or is likely to occur which could have an Adverse Effect. An awarding organisation is not required to declare non-compliance with any Condition when it submits an event notification, and this includes the Principles Condition. If an awarding organisation chooses to declare a breach against the General Conditions when submitting an event notification, it should also consider whether the Principles Condition has been breached.

There may be some circumstances where the existing General Conditions do not cover a new, unexpected or novel scenario, and an awarding organisation will be operating within the framework provided by the Principles Condition alone. When considering an event notification in those circumstances, an awarding organisation should consider whether the Principles Condition only has been breached, when deciding whether to declare a breach of its Conditions of Recognition. 

Equality impact assessment

Ofqual assessed whether the proposals might affect students with specific protected characteristics. The consultation explained that Ofqual had not identified any negative impacts of the proposal on these students, but rather that there was a potential positive impact on all students, including those who share a protected characteristic. 

Respondents who commented tended to focus on Ofqual’s approach to the Principles Condition in general and not on how students with protected characteristics might be impacted. Respondents did not identify any negative equalities impacts caused by the Principles Condition.

Following the consultation, Ofqual’s view remains that the Principles Condition will set out expectations which should have a positive impact on all learners, including those who share a protected characteristic.

Regulatory impact assessment

We set out our view that there would be some burden as a result of Ofqual introducing the Principles Condition, but we expected this to be proportionate. The Principles Condition has been designed to make explicit the underlying expectations that already exist in the General Conditions and as such, any additional steps an awarding organisation would need to take to meet the Principles Condition should normally be minimal if it is already meeting the requirements of the General Conditions. 

The consultation asked for feedback on the regulatory impact, asking whether any additional costs or burdens had been overlooked and how these might be reduced. A number of awarding organisations commented that it was not clear how compliance would be measured, leading to unnecessary time and resource to try to understand and meet the Principles Condition. They commented on the potential burden that reporting against the Principles Condition would cause, in particular as part of Ofqual’s annual statement of compliance process. Awarding organisations also commented that there would be further complexity due to overlap between the Principles Condition and other General Conditions, which would cause additional regulatory burden.  

We recognise that any time we update our regulatory framework, there will be some additional burden on awarding organisations. For the introduction of the Principles Condition, that burden includes: 

• the initial, one-off, burden of awarding organisations familiarising themselves with the Principles Condition, reviewing processes and procedures and training staff 

• the ongoing burden of compliance with the Principles Condition

We have considered how this impact could be quantified. Based on the volume of materials, the Principles Condition and guidance are approximately 6 pages long and all 255 regulated awarding organisations will need to familiarise themselves with these. This may involve training multiple staff and reviewing processes and procedures against these. The Principles advice note is approximately 21 pages, and the Investigation and decision-making advice note approximately 5 pages. While awarding organisations can choose whether to follow these, we think it likely that most would choose to.  

Given the variation between awarding organisations we regulate, in terms of their size, structure, and qualifications offer, the exact nature of this burden will vary. It will be affected by factors such as the size of the awarding organisation, the number of staff it needs to train, the familiarity of those staff with Ofqual’s regulatory framework, and the awarding organisation’s own individual processes and procedures. Respondents to the consultation did not supply further information to allow us to precisely quantify this in terms of the exact cost or number of hours it would take. But based on the limited extent of materials with which awarding organisations will need to familiarise themselves, we expect this cost to be relatively small.

Our view remains that the additional burden is proportionate to the benefits it is intended to bring about and in line with the impact of any other change made to Ofqual’s regulatory framework. Where, through making explicit an underlying expectation of the General Conditions, an awarding organisation identifies additional steps it must take to become compliant, we consider the additional impact of doing so would be limited, necessary and proportionate. 

In terms of the ongoing impact, we have taken steps to seek to minimise this, which include: 

• ensuring the Principles Condition can be understood, to reduce the time awarding organisations need to spend interpreting and understanding it, by publishing advice notes to explain in more detail how the Principles Condition will work in practice 

• ensuring the approach to reporting compliance with the Principles Condition (particularly in the context of the statement of compliance and event notifications) is proportionate by only requiring reporting against the Principles Condition by exception 

The greatest additional burden is likely to be where the Principles Condition is relied on in the case of a new, unexpected or novel situation not covered by the existing General Conditions. This would create additional ongoing burden for affected awarding organisations who would, in future, have to follow the Principles Condition when they would not have had to do so before. Our view is that the benefit of the clarity the Principles Condition provides in such a scenario will outweigh the potential burden and it is possible it may reduce the need for additional more granular rules in some instances. 

As a result of the steps taken, while we recognise that the Principles Condition will impact awarding organisations, we consider the steps we have taken will minimise this, and that the additional impact which remains is proportionate to the benefits we expect the Principles Condition to bring about. 

Next steps 

We are publishing the final version of the Principles Condition, which includes the final principles, and the statutory guidance, alongside these decisions. 

As a new requirement, we recognise that awarding organisations will need time to understand and familiarise themselves with the Principles Condition and guidance, and to review processes and procedures and train staff. To allow for this, we have decided to bring the Principles Condition into effect on 4 December 2025. 

We have also published our Principles advice note and Investigation and decision-making advice note. These are being published in their final form, but we intend to keep them under review, so welcome feedback on these. 

Ofqual has discussed the principles with other regulators, Qualifications Wales and CCEA, and understands they are considering their position on whether to introduce a similar condition.