8. The Qualifications Wales (Monetary Penalties) (Determination of Turnover) Regulations 2019

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:21 pm on 2 April 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 5:21, 2 April 2019

Thank you very much. Can I thank both Members for their contributions? Suzy Davies, on behalf of the Conservatives, says that she is not aware of any consultation with regard to the figure of 10 per cent. Well, last year we went out to consultation on an upper limit of 10 per cent of an awarding body's annual UK turnover. And in that consultation, we also sought to define what constituted turnover.

The consultation exercise took place between October 2018 and January 2019. Qualifications Wales regulates 104 awarding bodies. There were 13 responses to the consultation, eight of which were from those awarding bodies. So, that's eight out of the 104 awarding bodies that Qualifications Wales works with who felt the need to respond to the consultation. Members also asked about the rationale around the 10 per cent. This was proposed for reasons of consistency and transparency and continuity across a regulatory system that people are working in in both an English and a Welsh context.

Now, some awarding bodies who responded to the consultation exercise felt it would be possible to separate out revenue generated from business in Wales, and consideration has been given to those issues and whether the 10 per cent should include regulated activity only. But, of course, these bodies maintain an income not just from regulated activity. I believe that it is helpful to be consistent with Ofqual and that 10 per cent is an appropriate limit. It is a significant amount of money to impose upon a regulated activity. But let's be clear, this is about the protection of learners and to ensure that there are safeguards within our qualifications system that are as robust as they can be. I will make no apologies for trying to protect the interests of learners by ensuring that our qualifications bodies have these powers. At the moment, there is a de minimis process or there is the ultimate process of simply de-registering or stopping somebody's activity. This gives us an opportunity to provide a middle way with sanctions, but it is potentially serious. But as I said in my opening remarks, if a—[Interruption.]