Section 171: Annual and other reports
482.This section requires Ofqual to publish an annual report. Ofqual has flexibility to determine when during its first year of life its reporting period should end, which will set the annual reporting period thereafter: it may be, for example, that Ofqual would decide that the reporting period in the first year should end in the autumn, in order that it can report on the previous summer’s exams and tests. Each subsequent reporting period would then end in the autumn. Ofqual may also prepare and publish other reports.
483.Ofqual must lay its annual reports before Parliament and (so far as the report relates to Northern Ireland, where Ofqual regulates vocational qualifications) the Northern Ireland Assembly. It may choose to publish a single document or separate documents in relation to England and Northern Ireland.
484.There are four things that Ofqual must include in its annual report:
A statement of what Ofqual has done in performing its functions in the reporting period.
An assessment of the extent to which it has met its objectives in the period. In relation to the qualifications standards objective, this assessment must take account of any information detailed in section 171(2)(c) about the attainment of relevant pupils in England.
Details of information on the levels of attainment in regulated qualifications which are wholly or mainly taken in schools – for example GCSEs. Ofqual may fulfil this by describing the information it has obtained, or actually publishing the information: for example, if it had the information available, it might publish information about the proportions of GCSE candidates in particular subjects getting particular grades.
If Ofqual has established arrangements for the referral of complaints about regulated qualifications to an independent party (under section 150(2)), the annual report must describe the activities of the independent party during the reporting period.
