Progressing Group Award review outcomes

Group Awards in SQA's portfolio are lapsed where:

• an existing Group Award has been revised by another Group Award
• there has been no uptake for a period of two or more consecutive years
• uptake is too low to sustain a meaningful national standard
• a qualifications partnership has been terminated

When a Group Award is entered into its lapsing period, the following will apply:

• the Group Award will be deleted from the relevant catalogue
• the Group Award specification will remain until the qualification reaches its finish date at which point it will be removed from SQA's website and archived
• no new centres may be approved to offer the Group Award
• centres should only enter candidates whom they expect to complete the Group Award during the defined lapsing period:
  • NC - 3 years
  • NPA - 3 years
  • HNC - 3 years
  • HND - 4 years
  • PDA - 3 years

The end of a Group Award's lapsing period is known as the finish date. After the finish date, the Group Award will no longer be live and the following applies:

• candidates may not be entered for the Group Award
• the Group Award will continue to exist only as an archive record on the Awards Processing System (APS)

QPM notify centres via the HN and NQ reports, details of Group Award removals and agreed actions to be taken with the GA components ie. retain Units or finish Units are published in the HN and NQ reports.

Where the decision is to revise/create a new qualification the SQA Lead Officer completes a 2 Development Opportunity Form (68 KB) to begin the development cycle.

Where the suggested course of action is to leave as is, no further action is required.