Police Station Representatives Accreditation Scheme external examiner's annual report summary 2024

As the external examiner, I provide independent scrutiny to check that candidates are assessed to a consistent standard and delivery arrangements are fair and protect the integrity of the assessments.

To do this, I review operational and delivery processes and review samples of assessments delivered by both providers.

This is an overview of my findings from my work to review the assessments delivered by the assessment providers during 2024.

In my last report, covering 2023, I found that the assessments were properly delivered, there was evidence of good practice and appropriate quality assurance processes were in place. I made a number of recommendations to further enhance the assessments, and this summary also provides an update on progress against these.

I would like to thank all those that supported my review for their time and for making documents available to review.

Key findings from assessments delivered during 2024

I am satisfied that the quality assurance processes in both organisations remain effective and that the marking and moderation of assessments are fair.

I also found that:

• Both assessment organisations applied marking guides correctly.
• Some improvements have been made to enhance diversity in the assessments, for example, a broader range of ethnicities represented in assessments.
• Written and CIT assessments delivered online were robust and secure.
• There continues to be variation in the written and CIT assessments pass rates between assessment organisations.
• The total number of new individuals registering to take the PSRAS assessments increased from 574 in 2023 to 651 in 2024.

Progress against recommendations in my 2023 report:

• Assessment organisations continue to make progress to improve the quantity and quality of candidate diversity data collected and reported to me following my recommendation. This includes putting in place approaches to collect data at registration.
• I recommended that assessment organisations should explore ways to improve the diversity of their assessors where an opportunity to do so arises. Both assessment organisations reported that no opportunities arose during the review period to address this recommendation. I note, however, that existing assessors from both organisations participated in Equality and Diversity and Inclusion training during the review period.
• I recommended that assessment organisations should regularly review their training and assessment materials to ensure that they remain as inclusive as possible. One provider updated their assessments and introduced a new CIT assessment, but no new written assessments were delivered in my review period. Both assessment organisations have committed to reviewing and introducing new CIT and written assessments during 2025 and 2026.
• I am pleased to note that both providers now display assessment policies clearly on their websites following my recommendation. This will provide more information and transparency about the assessments.
• I also recommended that a regular calibration meeting should be set up between the assessment organisations to seek to understand the variation in pass rates for the written assessments in 2023 and to provide additional assurance that assessment standards are consistent. I am pleased that this is now in place, and although this happened outside of the period covered by this report, I update on this below.

Calibration meeting

Although outside of the period covered in my review, I attended the first calibration meeting with assessors from both assessment providers in June 2025. A representative from the Solicitors Regulation Authority also attended.  Assessors reviewed three sample portfolio cases and two sample written exam answers created for the calibration. The discussion focussed on how each assessment organisation approached marking and whether portfolio submissions and written examination answers should pass or fail.

The meeting confirmed there is a consistency of standard between assessors in each assessment organisation. Markers also took a consistent approach to marking the portfolio cases, although there was disagreement on the third case, which was an example of a borderline case. However, there were some minor differences between each assessment organisation in how they approached marking the written assessment.

Key recommendations

Based on reviewing progress against my 2023 recommendations and latest findings, I have recommended the following actions:

• Assessment organisations should meet their commitment to regularly update and expand the pool of assessment materials to ensure a sufficient range of CITs and written exams is available. A failure to offer a wide range of regularly updated assessments could undermine the integrity of PSRAS.
• Assessment organisations should take further steps to align marking practices, including the use of shared marking standards. For example, by developing a shared marking framework for the written assessments and CITs that defines acceptable variations in candidate responses. This would include examples of borderline answers and how they should be treated to reduce subjective discrepancies.
• Steps should be taken to improve consistency through regular calibration meetings. The next meeting should review approaches to the marking of CITs.
• In addition to calibration meetings, assessors from each organisation should meet regularly to review samples of the other provider's assessments.
• Further work is required to understand and address the variation in pass rates between assessment organisations.
• Assessment organisations should continue to review and update training and assessment materials to better reflect the diversity of the population.
• I recognise that encouraging candidates to provide information about their characteristics remains a challenge for assessment organisations. Despite this, assessment organisations should continue to explore how they can encourage individuals to provide information.

We welcome the findings of this report, which provides assurance that the PSRAS assessments delivered by Cardiff University and Datalaw are administered to an appropriate standard. We agree with the recommendations made by the external examiner.

We also acknowledge and appreciate the efforts made by both assessment providers throughout 2024 to implement and progress the recommendations previously set out by the external examiner. We have monitored progress through quarterly meetings with assessment organisations.

We have already made progress to address several of the external examiner’s latest recommendations including:

• Putting in place further calibration and review meetings to support alignment in marking between assessment organisations.
• Developing a shared marking framework to support assessment organisations to adopt a more consistent approach to marking. Assessment organisations will adopt this framework in early 2026.

We agree with the recommendation made by the external examiner that the integrity of the PSRAS scheme could be undermined if assessment providers use a limited pool of written and CIT assessments. Whilst no new assessments were introduced during the review period, we know through our ongoing monitoring that assessment providers introduced new CITs and/or written assessments during 2025.

Both assessment providers have committed to reviewing existing and introducing further new assessments in 2026.  We have agreed dates for implementation and will monitor progress closely. Our PSRAS provider regulations allow us to act if progress fails to meet the agreed timetable, for example, we can revoke a provider's approval.

We agree with the external examiner's recommendations that further work is required to understand the variation in pass rates for the written assessment. We have worked with the assessment providers through the calibration meetings during 2025 to understand the potential causes and how any variation can be addressed, if necessary. We will continue this work, including through the further analysis of data, during 2026.