Guidance

FSQ outcomes – Template C

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 C: Pass thresholds at component-level for FSQ English and at component/qualification-level for FSQ maths
• 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

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 pass thresholds that were used to determine outcomes for which pass thresholds are applied and that were issued during the reporting period. Submit 1 row per assessment ID and pass threshold.
4. For FSQ English component-level pass thresholds should be included. Since FSQ maths is a single-component qualification, the pass threshold for the highest-level outcome (which is equivalent to the qualification and single component-level outcome) should be included. Do not include pass thresholds for any sub-component outcomes.
5. All pass thresholds that apply to AssessmentID values for outcomes submitted in Template B should be included. Include the pass threshold for all AssessmentIDs even if pass thresholds have not changed from a previous return.
6. Only submit pass thresholds where they have been confirmed at the point of data submission. Do not include unconfirmed (for example, notional) pass thresholds.
7. 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. AssessmentID values should match with data submitted 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}$
QualificationNumber	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications, for example, 123/1234/1.	3	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted.	^.{10}$
AssessmentTitle	Title of the assessment.	4	Accepted values: •Reading •Writing •Maths •SLC	^(Reading|Writing|Maths|SLC)$
AssessmentID	Unique identifier for the assessment, generated by the AO. See general completion guidelines for detail. Should match the codes given in Template B	5	1 to 50 characters accepted	^.{1,50}$
MaxMark	The maximum mark available for each student to achieve. For Maths, we expect qualification/component-level marks (not sub-component marks). For English, we expect component-level marks	6	Up to 3-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,3}$
PassThreshold	Number of marks required for a pass. For Maths, we expect qualification/component-level thresholds. For English, we expect component-level thresholds	7	Up to 3-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,3}$

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

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
01/05/26	Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. No changes to actual requirements were made

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