Accreditation Newsletter

Better Regulation - Accountability

We want to highlight how we meet the five principles of regulation. Last month we focused on Proportionality and this month we will focus on accountability.

In terms of its definition, accountability means that Regulators should be able to justify decisions and be subject to public scrutiny.

To be accountable, we always strive to explain the decisions that we make, whether that be through our audit reports, provider monitoring visits reports, our accreditation decisions, indeed any decisions we make. 

We have a sanctions policy but very rarely do we have to issue sanctions. However, when we do, we issue a warning letter first and this sets out our rationale as to why we feel that a sanction is justified. This warning letter is normally sufficient for an awarding body to take the necessary action.

A more recent example of how we strive to meet the accountability principle relates to our consultation on the current Regulatory Principles.  We took the time to go through all of the feedback and we publish a document, “We asked, you said, we did”, where we set our reasoning as to why we did not act on some of the feedback. The feedback we received was positive and awarding bodies, whilst they may have disagreed with our reasoning, appreciated the fact that we published our thinking.