Security Update January 2018

Updated ‘Introduction to Learning Leading Towards Licence-Linked Qualifications’ Document Issued by the SIA - comes into effect 1st April 2018

Please be advised that the SIA has recently reviewed and updated the Introduction to Learning Leading Towards Licence-Linked Qualifications document.  The review has taken a light touch approach and has mainly sought to add clarification to requirements where necessary.  For ease of reference the SIA have also produced a document outlining which areas have been updated:

See the full document 

See the amendments

The requirements within the new document must be implemented by 1 April 2018 although we recommend that centres implement any changes required as soon as possible.

Please take particular note of the updates to the following sections:

Section 3: English Language Pre-requisite for Learners

Centres must ensure that all learners have sufficient reading, writing, speaking and listening language skills before putting the learners forward for assessment.  Evidence must be retained by centres for all learners and made available for external review purposes.

Learners should have as a minimum an ESOL qualification at Level 1.

Section 5: Examination Venue Criteria

All tests must be stored securely in a lockable safe.  A filing cabinet is not acceptable.

Section 11: Standard Delivery Times for Units in Licence-linked Qualifications

The SIA has clarified the minimum number of days over which the learning must be delivered.  Full information is contained in Annex A, which shows the days WITH and WITHOUT the use of distance learning.

Each day should not exceed eight hours of contact time.

Centres should retained detailed registers that include start/end times of training for each day and should be signed daily by the learners.  This should include a record of any late arrivals/early leavers and how these learners made up the required hours which they missed.  These should be retained for audit purposes.

Section 12: Use of Flexible and/or Distance Learning

This section contains further clarification on the minimum number of days a course must be delivered in if distance learning is NOT used and what information must be retained for audit purposes.  Please note that if centres are using distance learning, they are required to check that the distance learning hours have been completed during training to ensure appropriate learning has occurred, and must provide and retain robust evidence of this for audit purposes.