Performance management in the Scottish Qualifications Authority – podcast transcript

Leon:  Hello, I’m Leon Thomson and I’m joined by Nick Hex, project manager for the central government team, performance reporting, and we’re going to be talking about the latest Audit Scotland report Performance management in the Scottish Qualifications Authority. So Nick, what has this report found?

Nick:  Well we’ve found that the SQA has recovered from the problems it faced in 2000 and its customers and stakeholders have confidence it’s able to fulfil its core functions.  It’s achieved this through the close management of its process and products led by its board and executive team.  This has helped take the SQA beyond recovery and into a position where it’s demonstrating a commitment to continuous improvement.  While this represents good progress we believe the SQA can still improve further.  We’ve identified there’s a need for the board and senior management to focus more closely on strategic risks rather than organisational management.  It’s working on improvements to its performance management framework by developing a balanced scorecard and its beginning to understand the link between its activities and costs better.

Leon:  The report makes a number of recommendations – which is the most important?

Nick:  There’s no single recommendation that we consider to be more important than the others – they need to be progressed as a package to ensure maximum impact for the SQA.  What we have recommended is that the SQA should use its review of staffing qualifications portfolio and business areas to provide a more critical challenge of its products and processes, that the board and senior management of SQA continue to develop more strategic focus, that the SQA should develop its key performance indicators linked to its key objectives as part of its development of a balanced score-card.  We’ve also recommended that the SQA should continue to explore the scope for efficiency savings including opportunities presented by the SQA’s modernisation agenda and we’ve also recommended that the SQA continue to refine its work-linking costs with activities in order to further improve understandings of its cost base and to inform the setting of charges for qualifications.  And finally we’ve also recommended that the SQA should explore the opportunities for greater use of benchmarking to inform performance management activity and as a group we believe those will be able to take the SQA forward and help them to improve.  

Leon: You say performance indicators should be improved – what sort of thing do you have in mind?

Nick:  Well, the indicators as they stand focus very much on processes rather than outcomes and what we’d like to see the SQA developing is a sense of what the SQA is seeking to achieve and the extent to which it is trying to meet its objectives.  Audit Scotland itself wouldn’t be too prescriptive about the performance measures the SQA should develop because that’s really their role.  However, there are some fundamental challenging questions that they should be asking themselves such as: how does the SQA assess whether it’s offering the right sort of qualifications or are the needs of individuals, society or the economy being assesses by the SQA?  

Leon: Nick, my final question relates to the SQA’s expenditure which seems to have risen by 69 per cent since 2000.  Isn’t this a cause for concern?

Nick:  No, we don’t believe it’s an issue.  Expenditure has risen and it’s partly as a response to the problems faced in 2000 but also because the SQA is now operating in a very different environment.  There’s a much more diverse range of qualifications for which examinations need to be developed, set and assessed, for example the Skills for Work initiative offers school-age people courses to experience the world of work.  The organisation’s also working to modernise its products through e-assessment and e-learning – it now provides some results on-line and by text message and the SQA’s also developing an international profile designed to provide Scottish education and training.  It’s also carrying out some commercial activities to support training and development.

Leon: Nick, thank-you very much.