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In or around May 2018, British Safety Council (BSC) and a number of other awarding organisations were made aware by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Metropolitan Police of alleged Centre-level certificate fraud in relation to the Level 1 Health and Safety in a Construction Environment qualification.

Ofqual completed an investigation into BSC鈥檚 compliance with its Conditions of Recognition in relation to the delivery and award of BSC鈥檚 Level 1 Health and Safety in a Construction Environment qualification in 2018, 2019 and 2020 (鈥渢he First Investigation鈥�).

The First Investigation was settled through an undertaking dated 4 October 2019 (鈥渢he Undertaking鈥�), after BSC admitted breaches of General Conditions A5.2(a), A5.2(b), A5.2(e), A6.2(a), A7.1(a), A8.2(a), C1.1(b), C2.3(e), H5.1, H6.1(d), I4.1(d), I4.2(b) and I4.2(c); and accepted it was likely to fail to comply with Conditions A6.1 and A8.1.聽 Those breaches can be broadly categorised as a failure to implement sufficiently robust processes to detect and/or investigate suspected malpractice and/or mitigate the adverse effects of malpractice in relation to the BSC Level 1 Health and Safety in a Construction Environment qualification.

The Undertaking required BSC to remedy the issues and commission an independent audit to show those issues had been remedied.聽BSC complied with the terms of the undertaking, submitting a positive audit report in March 2020, which effectively brought the First Investigation to a conclusion.

Between October 2019 and March 2020 BSC submitted a number of Event Notifications in relation to the BSC Level 1 Health and Safety in a Construction Environment qualification (鈥渢he Additional Event Notifications鈥�).聽BSC accepted at least 8 of the Additional Event Notifications related to matters similar in nature to those identified during the First Investigation. BSC accepted a number of those Event Notifications contained breaches of the General Conditions similar in nature to those described at paragraph 3 above.聽BSC accepted each was ongoing prior to the Undertaking being signed and materially relevant to the outcome of the First Investigation and ought therefore to have been disclosed to Ofqual prior to BSC signing the Undertaking.

Ofqual commenced a second investigation (鈥渢he Second Investigation鈥�) to review the content of each of the Additional Event Notifications and the reasons why BSC had failed to disclose them before signing the Undertaking.聽In particular, Ofqual noted the failure to disclose was not intentional and was a consequence of the unexpected and unfortunate departure of a senior member of staff for health reasons.聽BSC accepted it ought to have had appropriate systems in place to ensure the accuracy of its statements to Ofqual before signing the Undertaking.

On the basis of BSC鈥檚 admissions, Ofqual鈥檚 Enforcement Panel (鈥渢he Panel鈥�) has made findings that BSC failed to comply with Conditions A5.1, A8.1, B3.1, C1.1, C1.2, H6 and I4.2 of the General Conditions of Recognition.

The Panel noted those breaches were largely a continuation of the breaches outlined at paragraph 3, coupled with an additional failure to disclose all relevant information to Ofqual before agreeing the Undertaking.

BSC has since voluntarily ceased delivery of all Ofqual regulated qualifications and applied to Ofqual to surrender its recognition (鈥渢he Surrender Application鈥�).聽 The Surrender Application is stayed pending the resolution of any enforcement action arising from these matters. On that basis the Panel considers the risk of repetition is low.

Additionally, the matters detailed in the Additional Event Notifications pre-date BSC鈥檚 compliance with the Undertaking, suggesting BSC had taken steps to address the root causes of the original non-compliance.

Having regard to Ofqual鈥檚 Taking Regulatory Action Policy, the Panel considered a nominal monetary penalty of 拢5,000 to be appropriate.

BSC and interested parties now have the opportunity to make representations in respect of Ofqual鈥檚 proposal.