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Joint Planning Group for Quality Assurance in Higher Education

First Report

April 1996

Reference JPG 1/96

Introduction

1. In accordance with the arrangements made when the Joint Planning Group (JPG) was set up, this progress report has been prepared for the attention of the institutions, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, and the other Secretaries of State responsible for higher education. Under its terms of reference, the JPG is required to consult widely, and this report will receive wide circulation with an invitation to comment on it. While the proposals of the JPG recorded here are therefore provisional, the very tight timetable set for the JPG means that it will necessarily continue with its work into the Summer and will take account, as it goes along, of any observations on this report.

Background

2. Proposals for future quality assurance arrangements were submitted to the Secretary of State in Summer 1995 by the HEFCE, the CVCP and the SCOP. Each of these sets of proposals included the establishment of a planning group, comprising representatives of the institutions and the funding councils, to take matters forward. In September 1995 the Secretary of State wrote to the Chairman of the CVCP and the Chief Executive of the HEFCE, agreeing that such a planning group should be established. In her letter she also pointed, inter alia, to "the advantage in developing arrangements which address both quality and standards" and to the funding councils' continuing "statutory responsibilities in respect of quality assessment in order to ensure proper accountability for the use of public funds", adding "in respect of assessment at least, I could not contemplate a solution which relied mainly on self-regulation".

3. Preparation for the establishment of the JPG was carried out by an informal group - the Quality Forum - involving CVCP, SCOP, COSHEP, HEFCE and HEFCW. The Quality Forum agreed the chairman and membership of the JPG (Annex A) and its terms of reference (Annex B). The Secretary of State's agreement was given to the terms of reference and membership proposed by the Quality Forum, and to the appointment of Sir William Fraser as Chairman of the JPG.

The JPG's Task

4. In broad terms, the JPG's task is to develop proposals for a new quality assurance agency which will have the primary function of providing a service for assuring the quality of higher education and the standards of programmes and awards. It is envisaged that the agency will operate initially in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Without any commitment to the outcome of the exercise, the SHEFC has nominated a representative to the Group. The aim is to establish the agency by 1 January 1997.

Progress

5. The JPG has held four meetings between January and April 1996. Much of the discussion has focused on developing a framework for the process of quality assurance (leaving detailed development and implementation to the agency) and a framework for the constitution of the agency. The JPG has also given preliminary consideration to how to achieve a smooth transition from current arrangements to those that will develop within the new framework. This first report, which is being made public, describes the position that has been reached in the first three months of the JPG's work. The report is being communicated to institutions and other interested parties; comments received will be taken into account in the next phase of the JPG's work.

The Quality Assurance Process

Purposes of Quality Assurance

6. Quality assurance in higher education should support institutions in discharging their responsibility for the maintenance and enhancement of the quality and standards of their educational provision. In so doing it should:

  • a. Facilitate quality improvement through the sharing of good practice and innovation.
  • b. Enable the higher education funding bodies and the institutions to discharge their statutory responsibilities for public accountability.
  • c. Provide timely and accessible public information, on a consistent and comparable basis, on the quality and standards of the educational provision for which each institution takes responsibility.
  • d. Ensure that any unacceptable provision is speedily addressed.

Principles

7. The JPG has agreed on a number of key principles that need to be addressed in a quality assurance process:

  • a. The centrality of rigorous institutional self-evaluation.
  • b. Partnership and co-operation between the institutions, an external agency and the funding councils.
  • c. Evaluation of both `fitness of purpose' and `fitness for purpose', in order that both quality and standards can be addressed.
  • d. Promoting self-improvement in institutions.
  • e. Independence of judgement delivered through rigorous external peer review, in order to secure outcomes on a consistent and comparable basis that command public confidence.
  • f. Openness of process and judgements, involving published reports.

Conditions

8. The JPG's terms of reference (set out in full in Annex B) also refer to a number of conditions that need to be satisfied in framing a quality assurance process, including:

  • a. Respect for the academic autonomy of institutions and their individual responsibility for standards, whilst meeting the needs of the funding councils in respect of public accountability.
  • b. Balancing the need for consistency of process and independence of judgement with the need to have regard to institutions' own self-evaluations and reviews.
  • c. Comparison of costs and benefits of present and future arrangements.
  • d. Delivering a smooth and orderly transition which maintains the momentum of the current programmes of audit and assessment, whilst allowing for a staged development towards the new framework.

Evolution

9. The approach of the JPG is to draw on the experience, favourable and unfavourable, of internal and external quality assurance processes. The JPG believes that quality assurance processes in a form that meets the requirements of the funding councils and DENI and that commends itself to the institutions must necessarily embrace the maintenance and enhancement both of the quality of education and of standards.

The Framework for a Quality Assurance Process

10. The JPG is working on a future framework for quality assurance in higher education that will have three main components:

  • a. Self-evaluation by institutions.
  • b. Agency-managed external subject/programme area review.
  • c. Agency-managed external institution-wide review.

11. The experience of quality assessment and quality audit shows that institutions are at different stages in the development of effective and robust internal quality assurance processes. The JPG believes that, dependent upon the demonstrated validity and reliability of these processes in individual institutions, greater and more systematic weight could progressively be placed on the evidence derived from those processes, and from any self-evaluative review that flows from them. As a general proposition, strengthening the effectiveness of self-evaluation should lead to a reduction in the weight of external review, provided that the required outcomes can be secured. Developing this idea will require further consideration by the JPG, and detailed work and consultation by the agency in 1997, and will necessarily involve piloting, evaluation and consultation.

12. The JPG has also agreed that the composition of agency-managed review teams should reflect greater institutional involvement. Two possible ways of achieving this are being considered. The first would involve an agency-managed review team having on it an observer appointed by the institution. The second would involve an agency-managed review team, led by an external chairman, having amongst its members staff appointed by and from the institution. Developing the latter proposal in particular would raise a number of issues which the JPG would need to consider further (for example, who are the internals? how many of them are there? what is their role? what are the operating rules for internal/external teams?). The agency will prepare detailed proposals and consult on the composition of review teams.

13. It is against this background that the more detailed proposals below should be considered.

Self-Evaluation by Institutions

14. All institutions will be expected to have in place formal monitoring and review mechanisms covering their main teaching and learning activities. The areas covered by such mechanisms, and the persons involved in their application, will be matters for each institution to decide.

Subject/Programme Area Review

15. Subject/programme area reviews would take place every 6-8 years, within a two year timeframe common to all institutions with provision in the subject/programme area concerned. The review teams would be composed of external academic and, where appropriate, professional peers appointed by the new agency, together with an institutional observer or institutional members. All review team members would be trained by the agency. The reviews would take place within a full programme and timetable published by the agency. Each review would lead to a published report on the nature and main features of the provision, with strengths and weakness summarized in a graded profile.

16. A subject/programme area review would take the form of:

  • a. A self-evaluation by the department(s) or unit(s) concerned of the quality of the relevant educational provision and standards of student educational attainment, measured against the aims and objectives set for that provision. The self-evaluation would include information and evidence arising from institutional quality assurance processes, including course monitoring.
  • b. An analysis of the self-evaluation by the review team, based on a study of the claims made and the supporting evidence, including a visit to the department or unit.
  • c. A published report containing judgments supported by evidence about strengths and weaknesses, which would be reflected in a graded profile. The institution would be expected to rectify those aspects needing attention. Where the graded profile showed cause for serious concern, a further review would take place within a year.

17. Each subject/programme area review would be undertaken within a detailed operational framework to be determined by the agency through consultation. The framework would make specific reference to issues of both `fitness of purpose' and `fitness for purpose', including how the departments/units concerned identify and confirm the achievement of appropriate standards of attainment for the relevant awards. The agency will be expected to develop proposals to ensure that the framework is able to cover provision not currently addressed by quality assessment, namely research degrees/diplomas and provision not funded by the funding councils.

18. The review team members would be trained by the new agency. All external members of teams would be appointed by the agency. Applications and nominations would be judged against a clear job description and person specification. The names of the team members (including the institutional affiliations of the externals) would be published.

19. The details of the aspects of provision to be assessed, the format for the self-evaluation, the categories of evidence to be used (including use of the results of institutional course monitoring and other internal quality assurance processes), the criteria to be taken into account in reaching judgements, and the format for reporting outcomes, would be published by the agency after consultation, together with procedural guidance.

Institution-wide review

20. Institution-wide review would take place at least every 5 years. The review teams would be composed of peers appointed by the new agency, together with an institutional observer or institutional members. The aim would be to confirm that the institution was discharging effectively its educational responsibilities, including its responsibilities for the learning of students. The outcome would be a published report by the agency which would also highlight strengths and weaknesses in the ways the institution was discharging its responsibilities.

21. The institution-wide review would cover the institution's policies and arrangements for achieving its educational objectives and for establishing and maintaining the quality and standards of its programmes and awards, the institutional learning infrastructure, provision of central services, and institutional communications. It would thus focus on quality and standards issues not covered in the subject/programme area reviews, on wider quality and standards issues arising from those reviews, and on the ways in which institutions had responded to the outcomes of those and other reviews.

22. The institution-wide review would take the form of:

  • a. A self-evaluation by the institution of the effectiveness of its policies and arrangements for establishing and achieving its educational objectives, drawing, inter alia, on the published subject/programme area reports.
  • b. An analysis of the self-evaluation by the review team, based on a study of the claims made and the supporting evidence, including a visit to the institution.
  • c. A published report confirming that the institution was discharging its responsibilities for teaching and learning effectively, and containing statements supported by evidence about areas of strength and weakness. The institution would be expected to rectify those aspects needing attention.

23. The review team members would be trained by the new agency. All external members of teams would be appointed by the agency. Applications and nominations would be judged against a clear job description and person specification. The names of the team members (including the institutional affiliations of the externals) would be published.

24. The details of the aspects of institutional activity to be evaluated, the format of the self-evaluation, the categories of evidence to be used (including the results of subject/programme area and other reviews), the criteria to be taken into account in reaching judgements, and the format for reporting outcomes, would be published by the agency after consultation, together with procedural guidance.

Standards

25. The setting and attainment of academic standards will be addressed in each of the three components of quality assurance. The written self-evaluations at both the institution-wide level and the subject/programme area level will need to include consideration of four basic questions, and review teams will engage with the responses to these questions:

  • a. What are the standards you seek to achieve?
  • b. Are those standards appropriate for the level of qualification you are offering?
  • c. How do you measure their achievement?
  • d. Have you achieved the standards set?

The ability of the quality assurance framework to address the question at b. above will be dependent upon the institutions and subject communities agreeing collectively what standards of attainment should be in HE, and how they should be described.

26. The precise way in which this approach to addressing standards will be implemented, including its impact on the final judgements contained in a review, will need to be developed by the agency through consultation with institutions, and in the light of the HEQC's continuing work on the Graduate Standards Programme (GSP).

Collaboration with Professional and Statutory Bodies (PSBs)

27. The quality assurance framework being developed by the JPG will integrate the current external processes of assessment and audit, and address standards. A quality assurance process that can meet the needs of the greatest number of PSBs, and of other stakeholders in HE, has significant potential for streamlining the overall level of external demand on institutions. The JPG hopes that this could be done by building on the current work of the HEQC and the HEFCE QAD.

28. The HEQC is currently working with the PSBs to understand and develop a taxonomy of their diverse quality assurance requirements and procedures, and has been closely involved in a major project involving professional bodies and employers in non-medical health care education and training. The HEFCE QAD is exploring with the PSBs the scope for joint assessment/accreditation activities, which can range from sharing documentation to carrying out joint visits. The first joint visit - with the Institution of Chemical Engineers - took place in February 1996. More joint visits are planned for the 1996-98 round of assessments.

29. Developing the potential for greater collaboration with the PSBs will require further consideration by the JPG, and detailed work and consultation by the agency in 1997, including consideration of the scope for co-ordination of PSB and subject/programme area review timetables, and will necessarily involve piloting and evaluation.

Benefits

30. As well as developing collaboration with the PSBs, the JPG has identified other areas where benefits for institutions could be achieved by 1998 through the evolutionary approach discussed in this report, in particular:

  • a. Engagement with a single agency and a consistent contact point - reduction in `transaction costs'.
  • b. One published external programme and timetable, allowing institutions to plan more effectively over a longer time period, and allowing for the maximum possible co-ordination with internal processes (for example, departmental reviews).
  • c. The greater part to be played by institutional self-evaluation.
  • d. The participation of an institutional observer or institutional members in the work of external review teams.
  • e. Subject/programme area review data providing the basis for institution-wide review, maximising the quality enhancement potential.
  • f. The potential for increasing the existing scope for negotiation with institutions (for example, team composition, timing of reviews, aggregation of subjects).
  • g. The explicit integration of standards issues with quality issues, thus resolving an area of some confusion and uncertainty in current external subject review.
  • h. The advantage (including to overseas and other "full-cost" markets) of having a single source of quality assurance statements to cover all categories of awards made by institutions.

Transition

31. The new agency will have the task of implementing the new framework, after piloting, evaluation and consultation.

32. In order to take account of the different timetables and life cycles of the current processes of audit and assessment, implementation will be achieved in stages:

  • a. The second round of audit commencing in April 1997 will make maximum use of existing internal and external assessment and review reports. Evolution to institution-wide review will commence once the new proposals have been piloted and evaluated.
  • b. The new subject/programme area reviews will take place, following piloting and evaluation, from October 1998. This will enable completion of the 1996-98 round of subject assessments in England under currently published arrangements.
  • c. The new agency will take over responsibility for running the current external processes from 1 January 1997, as well as developing the detail of, and implementing, the new arrangements.

The New Agency

33. The JPG has agreed to propose that the framework for the constitution of a new independent agency be as follows (the process for constituting the first board of directors is set out in paragraph 34):

  • a. It would be a company limited by guarantee, and registered as a charity.
  • b. The objects of the company would include:
    • i. The promotion and maintenance of quality and standards in higher education provided by UK universities and colleges.
    • ii. The enhancement of teaching and learning, and the identification and promotion of innovation and good practice in teaching and learning.
    • iii. The provision of information and the publication of reports on quality and standards in higher education provided by UK universities and colleges.
    • iv. The provision of advice to government as requested.
  • c. The members of the company would be the representative bodies of the heads of higher education institutions.
  • d. There would be 14 directors on the board of the company: four directors nominated by the HEIs' representative bodies, four directors nominated by the funding bodies (the funding councils and DENI), and six `independent' directors representative of the wider community with an interest in quality and standards in higher education (for example, students, employers, PSBs).
  • e. Directors should not hold remunerated posts either in a representative body or a funding body.
  • f. The `independent' directors, with the exception of the first chairman, would be appointed after consultation with relevant named bodies, including those representing employers, students, professional and statutory bodies. These directors should not hold remunerated posts in a representative body, a funding body, or a higher education institution.
  • g. Directors would be appointed as individuals in their own right, rather than be mandated by a nominating body.
  • h. Directors' terms of office would be limited, as would the number of times they can be re-appointed.
  • i. After establishment of the first board, subsequent appointments to the board, including that of the Chairman, should be made by the board itself, retaining the same overall balance of membership as the first board.
  • j. The board should have the right to reject a nomination.
  • k. It would be a condition of funding council grant to institutions that they draw on the agency's services to the extent that is necessary to allow the agency to meet the terms of its service level agreements with the funding councils.

Constituting the first Board of Directors

34. The process for constituting the first board of directors would be as follows:

  • a. The first chairman of the board would be identified and invited to accept appointment by the JPG chairman, after consultation with the members of the JPG.
  • b. The JPG chairman and chairman-designate of the company's board would receive nominations from the representative bodies and the funding bodies for filling the eight places available to them. There would be mutual consultation between the representative bodies and the funding bodies before names are put forward.
  • c. The chairman-designate and board members-designate would then receive suggestions for filling the five remaining "independent" places in the board's membership.
  • d. The first board thus constituted would take steps to appoint the first chief executive after advertisement of the position.
  • e. The first board would be established on a "shadow" basis as soon as possible.

The Functions of the Agency

35. In order to fulfil the objects outlined in paragraph 33. b., the new agency would need a mutually consistent set of contracts and agreements. The agency would:

  • a. Agree with institutions individually or collectively through their representative bodies to:
    • i. Confirm that their internal quality assurance procedures were working effectively.
    • ii. Identify and disseminate information about innovation and best practice in teaching, learning and student assessment.
    • iii. Provide specified services.
  • b. Agree with the government and with other external funding and accrediting organisations to provide information and reports about quality and standards in individual institutions, subjects, programmes and aspects of provision.
  • c. Publish information and reports on quality and standards in UK higher education at institutional and subject/programme level for both domestic and overseas audiences.

Funding the Agency

36. The agreements as above would be embodied in contracts, with associated financial arrangements, with the representative bodies, the funding bodies, government and other bodies (for example, PSBs), and with individual institutions as appropriate, including institutions not in membership of the representative bodies and/or not in receipt of public funds.

Future Work

37. The JPG has established a working party to be chaired by a JPG member, with representatives from the institutions, the HEQC and the HEFCE QAD. The working party's terms of reference require it to develop further the framework for the quality assurance process, integrating subject-level activity, institutional effectiveness and standards, and guaranteeing commonality of approach to institutions. The working party will build on the proposals outlined in this report.

38. In the light of its working party's report, and of the comments received on the frameworks set out in this first report, the JPG will work to refine its proposals for a final report in Summer 1996.

39. This second phase of the JPG's work will include consideration of relative costs and benefits of current arrangements and proposed future arrangements.

40. The company's Memorandum and Articles of Association will need to be prepared.

41. Steps will be taken to establish the company's first board of directors along the lines discussed above.

42. The first board will take steps to appoint the first chief executive after advertisement of the position.

43. Service level agreements will need to be negotiated between the funding bodies and the agency's first board of directors.

44. The current employers of the staff affected by the establishment of the agency - the funding councils and the HEQC - will need to undertake consultation with those staff and put in place arrangements for the transfer of staff to the new agency.

Annex A

Membership of the Joint Planning Group

Chairman Sir William Fraser

Members

Nominated by HEFCE:
Professor Brian Fender, Chief Executive, HEFCE
Professor David Watson, Director, University of Brighton (currently Chairman of HEFCE Quality Assessment Committee)
Nominated by the Chief Executive of HEFCW:
Mr Mike Laugharne, Head of Quality Assessment Division, HEFCW
Nominated by SHEFC:
Professor John Sizer, Chief Executive, SHEFC
Nominated by CVCP:
Professor Gareth Roberts, Vice-Chancellor, University of Sheffield (currently Chairman of CVCP)
Mr John Stoddart, Principal, Sheffield Hallam University (currently Chairman of HEQC)
Nominated by SCOP:
Dr Martin Gaskell, Director, Nene College, Northampton (currently Chairman of SCOP)
Nominated by COSHEP:
Professor John Arbuthnott, Principal, University of Strathclyde (currently Convenor of COSHEP)
Nominated by NIHEC:
Professor Peter Bush, Vice-Principal, Glasgow Caledonian University

Assessors

Nominated by DfEE:
Ms Caroline Macready
Nominated by SOED:
Mr Tom Kelly
Nominated by WOED:
Mr Bob Evans

Joint Secretariat

CVCP and HEFCE, with support from HEQC

Annex B

Joint Planning Group for Quality Assurance in Higher Education Institutions: Terms of Reference

Introduction

1. Members of the group will include CVCP, SCOP and HEFCE, COSHEP, the Northern Ireland HEC and HEFCW. Assessors from DENI, DfEE, SOED and WOED will be invited. SHEFC will be invited to appoint an observer on the basis of the Secretary of State for Scotland's request that they should be appropriately involved in further planning but without commitment at this stage.

2. The independent Chairman, confirmed by the Secretary of State, will be Sir William Fraser.

Aims

3. The aim of the group will be to develop in detail proposals for a new Agency submitted to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment on 20 July, and to produce an agreed implementation plan. The primary function of the new Agency will be to provide a service for assuring the quality of higher education and the standards of programmes and awards for HE institutions in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and, if appropriate, HE institutions in Scotland. The aim is to start the new Agency by January 1997.

4. To achieve this the group will need to:

  • draw up the specifications for an integrated quality assurance process which will supersede the current audit and assessment processes carried out by HEFCE's and HEFCW's QAD and HEQC, address issues concerning educational standards and the enhancement of teaching and learning, and ensure availability of appropriate public reports;
  • determine in respect of the new Agency:
    • (i) its powers and responsibilities;
    • (ii) the composition of its Board of Management;
    • (iii) its relationship to the HE sectors of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and if appropriate to the HE sector in Scotland, if the outcome of the current review concludes that Scottish HE institutions wish to participate;
    • (iv) its relationship and responsibilities to the Funding Councils of England and Wales, to the Northern Ireland office and to other funding bodies and professional and statutory bodies;
  • identify a strategy and the timetable to ensure a suitable transition from the existing processes of audit and assessment to the integrated process of the new Agency;
  • determine the method of funding of the services provided by the new Agency;
  • determine the supplementary functions which the Agency will provide.

With respect to these aims, the group will need to ensure that appropriate consultation takes place with the HE sectors in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and of HE institutions in Scotland, that its proposals enable the Funding Councils to fulfil their statutory duties, and that, with respect to academic standards, the arrangements will obviate any need for the Secretary of State to exercise her reserve powers under the FHE Act 1992.

Context

5. In pursuit of its aims the Group will have regard to:

  • the conditions set out in the letters to the Chairman of CVCP and the Chief Executive of HEFCE from the Secretary of State for Education and Employment dated 21 September 1995 headed "Developing Quality Assurance in Partnership with Institutions of Higher Education";
  • the letter to the Secretary of State for Scotland from the Chairman of the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals (COSHEP) dated 21 September 1995 and the reply from the Secretary of State for Scotland dated 22 September 1995 headed "Further Arrangements for Quality Assurance of Higher Education";
  • the CVCP proposals submitted to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment on 20 July 1995 documented in "Developing Quality Assurance in Partnership with Institutions of Higher Education";
  • the HEFCW submission to the Secretary of State for Wales dated June 1995 - "The Development of Quality Assurance in Wales";
  • the SCOP submission to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment dated July 1995.

Consultation

6. Before concluding its final report, the Group will ensure that it has:

  • consulted with HE institutions in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and with the representative bodies of the Heads of those institutions, COSHEP, CVCP, SCOP and the meeting of Heads of HEls in Wales;
  • fully consulted with the Funding Councils and that its proposals ensure that the Funding Councils are able to fulfil their statutory responsibilities;
  • further consulted with such other bodies, agencies and groups with a direct or indirect interest in higher education as seems appropriate, including HEQC, the professional and statutory bodies and the bodies representing academic staff and students.

Reports

7. The Group will report to the Secretaries of State and others on a three-monthly basis and, following the consultation referred to in paragraph 6, will provide them with a final report.

Scotland

8. In the event of SHEFC, COSHEP and the Scottish Office so determining, these terms of reference shall be appropriately amended to ensure participant representation of SHEFC on the group and, in all cases, references to England, Northern Ireland and Wales shall be amended to read England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

Terms of Reference: Appendix

Detailed Requirements

In order to meet the Secretary of State's requirements, set out in her letter of 21 September 1995, and to achieve the aims set out above, the group will need in particular to:

a. determine a structure for the governance and operation of the Agency which respects the academic autonomy of institutions and their individual responsibility for standards, but also meets the needs of the Funding Councils in respect of their duties to secure arrangements for assessing the quality of the education for which they provide funds;

b. establish arrangements for assurance which balance the need for independence and consistency in the process with the need to have regard for institutions' own self-evaluation and review;

c. determine the costs and perceived benefits of the new arrangements and compare these with present costs and benefits:

d. provide for a transitional period which, while the momentum of current programmes for assessment and audit is maintained, allows for a staged development towards the new arrangements to commence;

e. continue the dialogue with all relevant institutions in Scotland with a view to the possible emergence of a UK wide scheme;

f.

  • i. determine the appropriate point for the external evaluation of the educational effectiveness of institutions;
  • ii. ensure that, in promoting a greater degree of synchronisation between institutions' own departmental reviews and the assessment of subject and programme areas by the Agency, there is sufficient currency in the outcomes to meet the needs of students and employers for up-to-date comparative information on the quality of cognate areas across the sectors;
  • iii. determine an appropriate cycle of reviews of cognate areas;

g. determine the arrangements for the recruitment, training and deployment of assessors to provide for equity and integrity in the new arrangements;

h. ensure continuity in many of the functions now provided by HEQC and, in particular, establish how the Agency can offer advice to the Secretary of State on applicants for degree awarding powers and the university title;

i. ensure that the new arrangements can earn the confidence of the international community

j. take steps to allow for the continuity of employment of staff currently engaged in work on standards in HEQC, and on quality in HEQC and the QADs of the Funding Councils;

k. take into account and provide a steer for the work on standards which will continue parallel to the work of the Joint Planning Group;

l. allow for a research and development function for the new Agency which might include innovation in teaching methods and the development and dissemination of good practice;

m. make recommendations on the nature and level of service agreements which the new Agency will need to enter into with the parent bodies and appropriate agreements with its various partners, including the professional bodies throughout the UK and the special needs of teacher education and relations with the TTA;

n. evaluate the need for an external system of dealing with student complaints.