When EAL's Compliance and Regulation team investigate cases of possible maladministration, particularly in regards to incorrect certificate claims, late registration and late certification requests and the outcome is 'maladministration proven'; centres are advised of the outcome via an email and confirms that the maladministration is recorded against the centre profile.
We are often asked what the implications of the maladministration are to centres and how long the record remains on the centre profile, therefore in order to offer some clarification on these questions we can confirm the following:
- When maladministration is recorded against a centre's profile, we will inform any relevant EAL personnel who have a connection to the centre, this forms a compliance audit trail for monitoring purposes;
- The centre's EQA is informed which will enable them to work with the centre to support them in regards to any areas for improvement to mitigate the risk of recurring maladministration and to ensure the policies and processes they have in place are robust;
- When a maladministration event is recorded on a centre's profile it will remain on there for as long as a centre is recognised with EAL, and forms part of the audit trail of compliance issues identified at a centre particularly around recurring maladministration;
- EAL as an Awarding Organisation are obliged to investigate and manage maladministration and malpractice in accordance with the Regulators General Conditions of Recognition (Condition A8) and any recurring maladministration may then be escalated to malpractice depending on the situation, thus becoming a notifiable event to the Regulator(s);
- Case of maladministration are not publicly published to any other Awarding Organisations a centre works with, or to any other regulatory and/or auditing bodies that a centre is monitored by e.g. OFSTED or the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). However should the subject of maladministration and/or malpractice be raised during a centre monitoring visit by another 'organisation/body', it is always in the best interest of the centre to be transparent and to inform of any occurrences and how these were/are being managed to mitigate any future risk of reoccurrence.
If you have any queries malpractice or maladministration please contact your EQA. Alternatively please contact our Customer Experience team or call 01923 652400.
