FOI21/22 013 ACM

Please can I have all information about the Alternative Certification Model - draft papers , final reports , minutes of all meetings with stakeholders including the Scottish government, letters and emails to and from the Scottish government as well as other stakeholders

SQA has already published information regarding plans for 2021 Awarding including the Alternative Certification Model.  It is a very fluid situation that SQA is operating in and updated plans co-created with the NQ 2021 Group are published regularly on our website and can be accessed National Qualifications.   These plans are produced in line with changes to the public health advice as issued by the Scottish Government.

In order to provide you with the information you have requested SQA requires to review all correspondence to retrieve the relevant information, redact where necessary and check.  To do this for all the correspondence requested would cost well in excess of £600.   Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 where an authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would result in costs in excess of £600 they are not required to comply.

Under section 15 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Duty to provide advice and assistance - if you can substantially refine your request this could bring the cost below the £600 and SQA will look at this again.  In order to avoid this exemption SQA suggest you may want to

1. Narrow down the scope to members of the SQA executive management team and
2. Narrow down the request for - all information - to papers, letters and submissions and
3. Narrow the time frame for the request.