SO16706 Provision of Digital Academy Accreditation Modified

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to over 22 million claimants and customers. The Department for Work and Pensions are hereafter referred to as the Authority. To meet spending reviews and the expectations of citizens the Authority needs to develop digital and on-line solutions. The Authority has recognised a gap in the digital training resources available and are looking to procure Digital Academy accreditation for the Foundation product to develop and up skill staff. - The Authority requires accreditation for the Foundation product of the Digital Academy service to support the up- skill of internal staff. The Authority aims to have the learning materials accredited by an external Awarding Organisation (AO). - The purpose of this is for the AO to ensure that the content and delivery medium of learning materials is fit for purpose, has specific and measurable learning objectives and meets industry standards. The Authority are asking for the course to be given accredited status from a recognised and widely acknowledged organisation. - The Authority requires accreditation for a number of different reasons: - To benchmark the suite of training products against external standards. - To provide assurance that individuals are meeting the prescribed standard. - To develop individuals from foundation level, to intermediate and ultimately expert level. - The Authority also requires the AO to train the Delivery Managers within DWP Digital Academy in order for them to be competent in assessing staff who access the training course. - The Delivery Manager will be the sole resource to award the pass and fail mark and therefore will also require training to conduct this. - To ensure that the Authority are conducting assessments in a fair and open manner, the Authority seeks training from the AO for members of the team in Quality Assurance processes. - The Authority requires a contract to be put into place for the AO to carry out a one off piece of work as specified in Section 5 – within the Appendix B. (attached)