Skills for Care’s additional assessment principles guidance for adult social care qualifications 

Skills for Care and the Joint Awarding Body Quality Group (awarding organisations that develop and offer adult social care qualifications), have produced a guidance document to support best practice in maintaining standardised approaches and to uphold the rigour and integrity of qualifications in the sector. 

Flexible arrangements to support existing principles and approaches to assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic have now been fully removed. There is an expectation that centres delivering qualifications return to full assessment approaches as guided by the assessment principles.  

There are currently two sets of assessment principles:  

• Joint Skills for Care and Skills for Health Assessment Principles for the Level 2 Diploma in Care in England 
• Skills for Care and Development Assessment Principles for all other occupational competence and work based qualifications in the sector in England 

Summary of the guidance 

• The guidance within the additional assessment principles sets out clarification of aspects from the existing assessment principles and aims to recognise developments e.g., with the use of technology in the assessment process. This additional assessment principles document must be used alongside and in conjunction with the appropriate existing assessment principles. 
• It applies to qualifications in England. These consist of those currently approved by Skills for Care and include the Level 2 Diploma in Care (delivered to learners in an adult social care setting) and the Level 3, 4 and 5 Diplomas in Adult Care. The relevant Skills for Care and Development Assessment Principles and this additional assessment principles guidance will also support the delivery and assessment of the new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate (Care Certificate) qualification, expected to launch for the adult social care sector from June 2024. More information on the new Care Certificate will be shared in early Spring. 

• The additional assessment principles guidance provides clarification of existing assessment principles in relation to: 
• requirements for direct observation  
• use of expert witness 
• use of technology in the assessment process 
• using technology to carry out direct assessment, for example, remote observation (the assessor observing the learner online carrying out a work activity) 
• tips to support the standardisation process 
• good practice for direct and remote observations. 

To access and read the full additional assessment principles guidance, please visit the Skills for Care website by following this link: www.skillsforcare.org.uk.