The CIEH voluntarily surrendered its recognition as a regulated awarding organisation last month (November 1). The decision means that the CIEH is withdrawing from three bodies responsible for regulating training in the UK: the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation; Qualifications Wales; and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment.
“The conditions that needed to be met to maintain recognition as a regulated awarding organisation were not sufficiently flexible to allow us to develop as a dynamic and innovative membership organisation, offering a wide range of products and services,” said Richard Ashton, CIEH’s executive director of commercial services.
‘Volutarily surrender recognition’
“We recognised that the decision to voluntarily surrender recognition as a regulated awarding organisation was going to have an immediate impact on the delivery of CIEH vocationally-related qualifications and since we first announced these changes, we have been working closely with the regulator, our customers and other stakeholders to ensure minimum disruption and a smooth withdrawal process.
“We are currently developing a suite of vocational qualifications, with the aim of delivering the first ones to market in the spring of 2017,” said Ashton. “The new qualifications will be flexible, innovative and affordable and customers will be purchasing quality training products which will improve standards and professionalism amongst the working population, helping to keep people and businesses safe.”
All of its current 38 regulated qualifications are being withdrawn with phased operational end dates, it revealed. The first 11 qualifications, including the Level 2 Award in Cleaning in Food Premises and Level 2 Award in Food Safety for Logistics, will end on January 31 2017. The remaining 27 qualifications, including the Level 1 Award in Health and Safety in the Workplace, will end on April 28 2017.
Training centres and trainers will continue to operate under the terms of CIEH agreements, complying with the CIEH Procedure Manual, until current agreements are terminated on July 28 2017.
In a separate move, the CIEH recently launched good practice guidance on food fraud for companies in the food supply chain. ‘Counter-fraud good practice for food and drink businesses’ was developed by CIEH’s food community in collaboration with Portsmouth University’s Centre for Fraud Studies and is supported by the Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit, Food Standards Scotland’s Food Crime and Incidents Unit and the Intellectual Property Office.
Online food safety courses
Elsewhere, Appetite Learning is an e-learning platform created in partnership by William Reed – the food and drink industry expert and publisher of foodmanufacture.co.uk – and Virtual College, an e-learning specialist with over 2M online learners. It offers a wide range of online courses specifically for the hospitality, retail and food manufacturing industries.
Appetite Learning’s competitively priced online courses save users time and money, showing measurable results alongside proof of compliance for businesses using them. Learning is flexible with course content accessible anywhere internet connection is available. Appetite Learning not only offers courses that meet compliance requirements, such as Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene, but it also covers the full suite of health and safety products as well as safeguarding and a manager’s toolkit.