Guidance

FSQ outcomes – Template A

Updated 1 May 2026

Applies to England

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide the following data for regulated qualifications.

This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities and to fulfil our responsibility as a government department. In particular, this data is used in the publication of the following interactive visualisations:

• Functional Skills qualifications (FSQ) outcomes

What data will be collected?

The FSQ outcomes collection consists of 3 templates. Across templates, data relates to Functional Skills qualifications (FSQ) in English and mathematics at level 1 and level 2 for students in centres in England

• Template A: Outcomes at qualification-level for FSQ English
• Template B: Outcomes at component-level for FSQ English and outcomes at component/qualification-level for FSQ maths
• Template C: Pass thresholds at component-level for FSQ English and at component/qualification-level for FSQ maths

Qualifications in scope

The following qualification types are in scope of this template:

• Functional Skills qualifications (FSQs) in English at level 1 and level 2

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all students in centres in:

• England

Time period in scope

Data is collected at multiple points during the year with each return covering specific months in the year. For detail on the months in scope of each return please see the reporting schedule.

When data will be collected

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is updated regularly.

How to submit your data

Your data must be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data document for more information. If you need to ask us about a data submission, please contact the Data Services team.

Please do not send your data files via email or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

Uploaded data

Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules.

If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into Ofqual’s internal systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.

The specific validation rules which are in place for this template are detailed in the ‘validation rules’ and ‘file format’ sections below.

Amendments to data

Errors or omissions in the data

Once the data has been successfully uploaded, it will be checked by Ofqual staff. If an error or omission is spotted, the data may be queried, and you may be requested to resubmit it. We will need to reject your existing submission ahead of a resubmission.

If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify Data Services by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.

If you wish to see your latest submission of a data return, for example to check the submission if it has been queried, please know it is available to download in the data portal.

Scheduled revisions of data

Each submission of this data is intended to show a snapshot in time. Therefore, there will be no resubmissions required to reflect any further updates to the data already submitted, unless an error or omission is spotted.

General completion guidelines

1. Numeric values must not have any formatting.
2. All fields are mandatory unless otherwise specified.
3. Each qualification-level outcome issued for FSQ English during the reporting period should be included with 1 row per student, per qualification outcome.
4. Where a student was issued multiple outcomes for the same qualification during the reporting period, there should be 1 row per outcome. For example, data for a student who re-sits the qualification during the reporting period, would have 1 row with the grade of the first attempt and another row with the grade achieved in the re-sit.
5. All qualification-level outcomes issued in the reporting period should be included. Outcomes should not be included in returns for multiple reporting periods.
6. Data should include only FSQ English qualifications, for Level 1 and Level 2; outcomes for FSQ maths qualifications are to be included in Template B.

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

Name	Description	Position	Description of Regular Expression	Validation Regular Expression
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	1	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day-of-month (2 digits) Format accepted: yyyy-mm-dd	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
AwardingOrganisation	Awarding organisation acronym as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated organisations	2	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
CentreNCN	Centre’s National Centre Number as allocated by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) Higher NCN code not accepted	3	Valid NCN code. 5-digit integer accepted Higher NCN code not accepted -2 accepted where centre does not have an NCN	^(?:-2|\d{5})$
CentreURN	Centre’s Unique Reference Number as assigned by the Department for Education	4	Valid Centre URN. 6-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where centre does not have a URN	^(?:-2|\d{6})$
CentreIdentifierOther	Any other number allocated to the centre or assessment venue by individual awarding organisation at the time of data submission. Must be provided where CentreURN or CentreNCN are not available. If more than one identifier is available please provide as many as possible.	5	1 to 15 characters accepted -2 accepted where at least one of CentreNCN or CentreURN have been provided or for students who are not registered to a centre	^.{1,15}$
UniqueCandidateIdentifier	Unique Candidate Identifier (UCI)	6	Valid UCI. Alpha numeric 13 characters accepted -2 accepted  if not available	^(?:-2|.{13})$
UniqueLearnerNumber	Unique Learner Number (ULN) provided by the Learning Records Service	7	Valid ULN. 10 digits accepted -2 accepted if not available	^(?:-2|\d{10})$
UniquePupilNumber	Unique Pupil Number (UPN) for the student provided by the Department for Education	8	Valid UPN. 13 characters accepted -2 accepted  if not available	^(?:-2|.{13})$
CandidateIdentifierOther	Any other unique candidate number allocated by individual awarding organisation. Must be provided where UCI, ULN and UPN are not available. If more than one identifier is available, please provide as many as possible.	9	1 to 20 characters accepted -2 accepted where at least one of UCI, ULN or UPN have been provided	^.{1,20}$
FirstName	Student’s first name(s) If middle name cannot be separated from first name, please provide both names in the FirstName field and leave the MiddleNames field blank.	10	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
MiddleNames	Student’s middle name(s), if able to separate out from first names. Can be left blank if not known or unavailable, or if middle names cannot be separated from first names	11	0 to 150 characters accepted Can be left blank if not known, unavailable, or if middle names cannot be separated from first names.	^.{0,150}$
Surname	Student’s surname or family name	12	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
DOB	Student’s date of birth	13	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day-of-month (2 digits). Format accepted: yyyy-mm-dd 2999-12-31 accepted if DOB unknown	^(19|20|29)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
QualificationNumber	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications, for example, 123/1234/1.	14	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted.	^.{10}$
ResultDate	Date  when result was issued to the centre (or student if result issued directly to student)	15	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day-of-month (2 digits) Format accepted: yyyy-mm-dd	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
QualificationGrade	Final grade awarded for the qualification. Submit fails where possible.	16	Accepted values: •P •F	^(P|F)$

Validation rules

A data submission is only considered complete once it has successfully passed the validation rules.

If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it. A file may be successful but with warnings. Warnings will not cause failure in the validation process but will highlight entries which may need to be checked. You will receive an email with details of the warning in an attached “Data Validation Warnings Report”. If you receive this, please review the report and contact Ofqual Data Services should the data require any amendment.

The validation rules for this template check that each field is correctly formatted. The correct formatting of the fields are detailed in the ‘file format’ section. Failure to format the fields in line with the validation regular expression will result in unsuccessful validation. Additional validation rules are also in place for this template and may include cross-referencing with other templates. These validation rules along with whether they result in failure or a warning are detailed in the following table.

Validation rule	Result if not met
‘ReportingDate’ matches date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	Fail and rejected
‘AwardingOrganisation’ is valid acronym	Fail and rejected
‘QualificationNumber’ is a valid qualification number in Ofqual register	Fail and rejected
‘CentreNCN’ is a valid reference number in the NCN register or the value is -2	Pass with warning
A value (other than -2) is submitted for ‘CentreIdentifierOther’ field if ‘CentreNCN’ and ‘CentreURN’ fields are both -2	Fail and rejected
A value (other than -2) is submitted for ‘CandidateIdentifierOther’ field if ‘UniqueCandidateIdentifier’, ‘UniqueLearnerNumber’ and ‘UniquePupilNumber’ fields are all -2	Fail and rejected

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change

Description of change

01/05/26

Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. Changed validation for CentreNCN field to accept 5 digits only (or -2) in line with the expectation for a valid NCN. Changed validation for CentreURN field to accept 6 digits only (or -2) in line with the expectation for a valid URN. Changed validation for UniqueCandidateIdentifier to accept 13 characters only (or -2) in line with the expectation for a valid UCI. Changed validation for UniqueLearnerNumber to accept 10 digits only (or -2) in line with the expectation for a valid ULN. Changed validation for UniquePupilNumber to accept 13 characters only (or -2) in line with the expectation for a valid UPN. Changed validation for FirstName to no longer accept 0 characters.

Contacts

For all queries or feedback relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance, please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email data.services@ofqual.gov.uk