Guidance

VTQ Special Consideration: guide to the data submission process

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, publish reports, and to fulfil our responsibility as a government department.

What data will be collected?

Data should relate to the number of special consideration requests for the time period and qualifications in scope of the collection.

Qualifications in scope

The following types of qualifications are in scope of this collection:

• Vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) that are included in the Department for Education’s performance tables (PTQs) for the academic year being submitted. These are:
  • Technical Awards
  • Technical Certificates
  • Tech Levels
  • Applied Generals
• International Baccalaureate Diploma qualifications
• Core Maths

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all students in centres in:

• England

Time period in scope

Data for the latest, full academic year (1 September to 31 August). Data should include all special consideration requests made for assessments taken between 1 September and 31 August. The date range relates to assessment dates (or submission dates or equivalent for non-exam assessments), not results dates.

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. Submit 1 row of data per special consideration type and disadvantage category per assessment (where special consideration is applied at the assessment level) or per qualification (where special consideration is applied at the qualification level).
4. Data should only include post-hoc mark or grade change type requests for special consideration, not requests for pre-agreed adjustments to assessment conditions (for example, a scribe).
5. For group applications (where a centre submits one application covering multiple students) please reflect the total number of students affected in the counts in fields 8 to 12, rather than just counting these as a single request and outcome. Where applications cover multiple assessments, please include these on separate rows.
6. Data should include cases with little or no evidence banked.
7. ‘AssessmentCode’ is a unique identifier for the assessment, allocated by the awarding organisation. Each individual assessment must have a unique code – codes should not be shared across different assessments and, aside from when specifications change, should be consistent across submissions, data collections and over time.
8. Assessment refers to the actual assessment tasks taken by students, such as tests or portfolios. Assessments are the lowest level of granularity within a qualification where marking and/or grading occurs.
9. Assessments are not equal to teaching units, but a unit might only contain one assessment. In the ‘AssessmentCode’ field, when one teaching unit is assessed by one assessment, please provide the URN (Unit Reference Number). Otherwise please provide a unique identifier for each individual assessment as defined above.
10. Disadvantage categories should be given where possible. For cases where a special consideration request relates to multiple disadvantage categories, please use the ‘other causes’ category in the field ‘DisadvantageCategory’.
11. Values in the field ‘TotalNumberOfRequests’ should equal the sum of ‘RequestsPending’, ‘RequestsRejected’, ‘RequestsApproved’ and ‘RequestsWithdrawn’.

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])$
AcademicYear	The academic year which this data submission relates to (defined as 1 September to 31 August) For example, 2022-2023	2	The academic year in the following format: start year (4 digits), a dash, end year (4 digits). Format accepted yyyy-yyyy.	^(20)\d\d[-](20)\d\d$
AwardingOrganisation	Awarding organisation acronym as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated organisations	3	Valid awarding organisation acronym. 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	4	Valid Qualification Number. 10 characters accepted. -2 accepted if not applicable or for cases where the assessment can be used for more than one qualification and the qualification is not yet known	^(?:-2|.{10})$
AssessmentCode	Unique identifier for the assessment, generated by the AO. See general completion guidelines for detail	5	1 to 50 characters accepted. -2 accepted for special consideration applied at the qualification level	^.{1,50}$
SpecialConsiderationType	Type of special consideration applied for	6	Accepted values: • Present but disadvantaged • Absent with good reason	^(Present but disadvantaged|Absent with good reason)$
DisadvantageCategory	The disadvantage category. The list of disadvantage categories is given in Appendix A below. Please choose the most appropriate one.	7	See Appendix A for accepted categories -2 accepted where the disadvantage category is not known. For example, where disadvantage categories are not recorded for absent learners	^(Illness or injury|Crisis or incident|Bereavement|Other causes|-2)$
TotalNumberOfRequests	The total number of requests made for the type outlined in DisadvantageCategory for the qualification assessment specified by QualificationNumber and AssessmentCode. Values in this field should equal the sum of RequestsPending, RequestsRejected, RequestsApproved and RequestsWithdrawn.	8	Up to 6-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,6}$
RequestsPending	The number of requests given in TotalNumberOfRequests that have not yet been rejected or approved or withdrawn	9	Up to 6-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,6}$
RequestsRejected	The number of requests given in TotalNumberOfRequests that have been rejected	10	Up to 6-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,6}$
RequestsApproved	The number of requests given in TotalNumberOfRequests that have been approved	11	Up to 6-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,6}$
RequestsWithdrawn	The number of requests given in TotalNumberOfRequests that have been withdrawn	12	Up to 6-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,6}$

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
‘AcademicYear’ value is in scope of the return	Fail and rejected
‘AwardingOrganisation’ is valid acronym	Fail and rejected
‘QualificationNumber’ is a valid qualification number in Ofqual register and does not belong to AEAs, GCSEs, AS or A levels or the value is -2	Fail and rejected

Appendix A: Disadvantage categories

Please use the following list of assessment methods for entering values for ‘DisadvantageCategory’. Where terms used by an awarding organisation differ from those given below, please select the closest match possible.

Disadvantage category	Description
Illness or injury	Where the student was disadvantaged due to an illness or injury immediately before or at the time of the assessment.
Crisis or incident	Where the student was disadvantaged due to a crisis or incident that occurred outside of their control at the time of the assessment. Examples might include (but are not limited to): • domestic crisis • serious disturbances during the assessment • accidental or unexpected events at the time of the assessment (for example, being given the wrong examination paper) • power failure or other technical issues • cyber-attack on the Centre or provider
Bereavement	Where the student was disadvantaged immediately before or during the assessment due to the loss of a family member or a close friend.
Other causes	Any other cause not covered above. For example, suffering from shock after witnessing a road accident immediately before the assessment. Also includes cases where a special consideration request might fall under more than one of the above categories.

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
01/05/2026	Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. Changed validation for ‘QualificationNumber’ to accept 10 characters only (or -2) in line with the expectation for a valid qualification number.

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