Five-day accreditation process

The five-day accreditation process is a quicker, optional alternative to the standard process. To be eligible to use the five-day process an awarding organisation must meet the requirements outlined in the Five-day accreditation process policy, which can be downloaded from this page.

Awarding organisations applying under the five-day process will have less regulatory intervention in the accreditation of qualifications and are not required to submit as much detail regarding a proposed qualification. The regulators guarantee to accredit qualifications submitted under this process within five days of the proposal being submission for accreditation.

Awarding organisations that wish to submit proposals using this process must apply to do so. An awarding organisation will be able to apply to use the five-day accreditation process if it meets all of the following criteria:

• it has been successfully recognised as meeting the regulators' criteria for awarding organisations - awarding organisations recognised before September 2004 will be required to submit an updated recognition proposal to show their compliance with the new criteria 
• it has had qualifications in the relevant subject/sector areas accredited since October 2003 
• it has submitted a bi-annual plan 
• the regulators have undertaken a monitoring activity in the past three years.

In addition, the awarding organisation will need to complete an application form. The form requires information under four main headings:

• identification of demand/development of rationale for the qualification 
• development of qualification content and associated materials 
• development of appropriate assessment arrangements for the qualification 
• quality assurance of the qualification's development process.