The Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) and the Excellence Gateway

The Quality Improvement Agency is a non-departmental public body and the successor to the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) as a champion of excellence and innovation in the further education system. It works across all publicly funded providers of post 16 education and training, except schools and universities, to improve performance. It aims to:

  • accelerate improvement in the performance of the learning and skills sector
  • build the sector's capacity for self-improvement
  • help the sector respond to strategic reforms
  • lead the sector quality improvement strategy

In September 2008 it will be merged with the Centre for Excellence in Leadership to form the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) thus providing a single agency for the promotion of excellence within the sector.

Within this overall remit the QIA is committed to supporting improvement in the quality of offender learning. It recognises the particular challenges faced by staff working within this part of the post 16 sector and that they would benefit from targeted support that reflects the current emergent stage of development of quality systems within offender learning contexts. Consequently, within the QIA’s Support for Excellence programme, there is a specific strand of work aimed at building capacity for self-improvement amongst LSC-funded offender learning providers and staff based in prisons and probation services, and those delivering to learners under youth offending services supervision. This strand of work seeks to:

  • develop understanding of self-assessment and associated processes;
  • develop effective practice in joint working between LSC-funded offender learning (OL) providers, heads of learning and skills (HOLS) and staff based in prisons, probation services and youth offending services to support quality improvement and develop capacity for self-improvement;
  • support the transfer of effective practice; and
  • encourage national and regional stakeholder agencies to develop joint approaches to quality assurance and quality improvement.

The QIA plans to achieve these objectives through:

  • a series of regional quality improvement workshops that bring together LSC-funded Offender Learning providers and Heads of Learning and Skills, and staff based in prisons, probation services and youth offending services
  • the development of a quality improvement framework that supports effective joint working, develops self-assessment processes and builds capacity for improvement
  • a national conference to share effective practice in self-assessment, quality improvement and joint working
  • the development of case studies on effective practice in self-assessment and quality improvement in offender learning contexts, to be published on the Excellence Gateway
  • the establishment of a national offender learning steering group, made up of key stakeholders, to direct this programme

Work on ‘Developing a Quality Framework for Offender Learning and Skills Throughout the Offender Learning Journey’ began with a series of regional workshops from January to March 2008. They were led by experienced offender learning and skills inspectors and practitioners and were aimed at:

  1. Prison Service Heads of Learning and Skills and Heads of Resettlement
  2. OLASS providers’ managers and team leaders
  3. National Probation Service ETE Managers

They focused on strategies for driving up the quality of provision and measuring its effectiveness. The responses and contributions of delegates are being used to inform the development of a Quality Framework for Offender Learning.

The QIA also manages the Excellence Gateway, which is an online service for post-16 learning and skills providers and is the new home for Learning and Skills Web and Excalibur. It provides examples of good practice, self-improvement, suppliers of improvement services plus materials to support teaching and learning for all parts of the FE system, including prisons.