Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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522. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will introduce a fee waiver for independently managed community education providers for Quality and Qualifications Ireland re-engagement. [43954/15]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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523. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills why organisations already accredited by the four bodies that are being amalgamated into Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, are being asked to apply for accreditation with QQI, thereby having to pay an additional fee, and if she will waive this fee. [43955/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 522 and 523 together.

Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) was established on 6th November 2012 by the Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012 through an amalgamation of four predecessor agencies - the Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC), the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC), the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI) and the Irish Universities Quality Board (IUQB).

The charging of fees to providers is enabled by the 2012 Act and is integrally linked with how QQI is implementing its quality assurance and quality improvement role. The policy informing QQI's application of fees was subject to extensive consultation and provides that fees will be comprehensive, coherent and reflect the amount and complexity of the work undertaken by QQI. Fees had always been applied to providers in the higher education and training sector and QQI introduced fees for providers in the further education and training sector, thereby applying its policies equitably.

In 2013 QQI published its policy for re-engagement with all education and training providers that had a quality assurance agreement with a predecessor agency. Accreditation, including that provided by some of the predecessor agencies, is, by its nature, time-limited and subject to renewal. It is not a permanent status attributed to a provider. Re-engagement with such 'legacy' providers involves agreeing revised quality assurance procedures in accordance with specified requirements set down in the 2012 Act and in QQI policy. The one-off re-engagement fee to be applied to legacy providers seeking to re-engage with QQI has yet to be determined.

Regarding providers in the Community and Voluntary Sector specifically referred to by the Deputy, it was agreed at a meeting hosted by my Department in December 2014 that 2015 would be a lead-in time for the re-engagement process and that the issue of fees for community and voluntary providers would not arise until 2016.

QQI established a Joint QQI /Community and Voluntary Working Group, which is facilitated by an independent facilitator with extensive experience in the community voluntary sector. The working group has met on 5 occasions this year, with a further meeting scheduled this month. The working group also jointly hosted a consultative event on QQI's quality assurance guidelines and criteria relevant to this sector on 30th June 2015. Through these initiatives, QQI and the community and voluntary sector are engaging on a range of operational, developmental and strategic matters in the specific context of quality assurance and re-engagement. The work of the group will assist QQI in clarifying its operational requirements for future re-engagement with community and voluntary sector organisations.