Moderation of recognition decisions

The highest risk assessment type, usually sampled at the same rate.

Validation and moderation arrangements typically sample across assessment types at a uniform rate. Recognition decisions carry more judgement, less standardisation and more commercial pressure than taught assessment, which argues for sampling them more heavily rather than equally.

What moderation should examine is not only whether the decision looks right but whether the file supports it. A correct decision resting on insufficient documented evidence is a finding, because the organisation cannot demonstrate the basis for a credential it issued.

It is also worth moderating refusals, which almost never happens. An assessor refusing applicants who should have been recognised is a real failure with a real cost, and it produces no complaint from anybody except the applicant, who has usually gone elsewhere.

Where moderation identifies a pattern in one assessor's decisions in either direction, that is a professional development matter rather than a misconduct one in most cases, and treating it as the latter guarantees it is not raised again.

It is worth moderating across assessors rather than only within a sample, since the most informative comparison is between two assessors looking at similar files. Where they reach different conclusions on comparable evidence, that is a calibration finding, and it is invisible when each is sampled separately against the standard.