Guidance

FSQ outcomes – Template B

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 B: Outcomes at component-level for FSQ English and outcomes at component/qualification-level for FSQ maths
• Template A: Outcomes at qualification-level for FSQ English
• 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
• Functional Skills qualifications (FSQ) in maths 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. Include all outcomes for which pass thresholds are applied and that were issued during the reporting period with 1 row per student, per outcome.
4. For FSQ English component-level outcomes should be included. Since FSQ maths is a single-component qualification, the highest-level outcome (which is equivalent to the qualification and single component-level outcome) should be included. Do not include any sub-component outcomes or outcomes of individual test papers.
5. Where a student was issued multiple outcomes for the same component during the reporting period, there should be 1 row per outcome. For example, data for a student who re-sits a FSQ English component or the FSQ maths 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.
6. Outcomes should be included in a return if the ‘ResultDate’ is within the reporting period. Outcomes should not be included in returns for multiple reporting periods.
7. Where a component result was adjusted, for example due to special considerations, malpractice or following a review, submit the adjusted result with ‘ResultDate’ being the date the adjusted result was issued to the student. If possible, do not submit both the original and adjusted results for the same component result. Do not include results that are under review at time of data submission – instead include the final/adjusted result in the subsequent reporting period that covers the date the reviewed result was issued to the student.
8. For all ‘AssessmentID’ values relating to outcomes submitted in this template, there should be a pass threshold submitted in template C.
9. In the ‘AssessmentID’ field, where there are multiple test versions available these must be identified by the assessment ID (at the component-level for English and the qualification/component-level for maths). For sessional assessments, ‘AssessmentID’ should also identify the session. For each unique AssessmentID, there should be a pass threshold submitted in template C.

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}$
AssessmentTitle	Title of the assessment.	15	Accepted values: •Reading •Writing •SLC •Maths	^(Reading|Writing|SLC|Maths)$
AssessmentID	Unique identifier for the assessment, generated by the AO. See general completion guidelines for detail. Should match the codes given in Template C	16	1 to 50 characters accepted -2 accepted where not known (for example, where centres do not report the exact assessment used for internal assessments such as the SLC)	^.{1,50}$
AssessmentMode	To indicate the schedule for  assessments Sessional: the assessments can only be taken once in the lifetime of a qualification, typically in one session only On demand: the same assessment is used more than once, either in a typical on-demand setting or in more than one session	17	Accepted values: •Sessional •On-demand	^(Sessional|On-demand)$
AssessmentDate	Date the component assessment was taken by the student. For maths, provide the date the final sub-component assessment was sat. For SLC assessment, provide the submission date.	18	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])$
ResultDate	Date when result was issued to the centre (or student if result issued directly to student)	19	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])$
Mark	Mark awarded to the student -2 accepted for not applicable or not known (e.g., for internal assessments and/or where assessments are graded, not marked)	20	Up to 3-digit integer accepted. -2 accepted where not applicable or not known (e.g., for internal assessments and/or where assessments are graded, not marked)	^(?:-2|\d{1,3})$
Grade	Final grade awarded at component-level for FSQ English or qualification/component-level for FSQ maths	21	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