Existing and former awards are those awards that were made either before the determination of the framework, or after its determination, but prior to implementation of the new framework standards for award-types.

These policies and criteria relate to arrangements enabling the revision of the placement, in the National Framework of Qualifications, of some existing awards. They build upon the policies and criteria already established by the Authority for the placement of existing and former awards in the Framework (Policies and Criteria for the Establishment of the National Framework of Qualifications, pp 43-45).

These policies and criteria refer to the potential revision of the placement in the Framework of:

• individual existing awards, where they have been placed as parts of sets of related awards or subsets of individual awards, and
• sub-sets of individual existing awards, where they have been placed as a part of a set of related awards.

Where a programme or programmes leading to such an existing award or awards has/have been re-validated leading to an award or awards based on new standards set by the awarding body for awards of an award-type in the Framework and where such new awards are at a higher level in the framework than indicated by the previous placement of the existing award, a revision of the placement can be considered in circumstances where:

• all of the programmes leading to the existing award or awards have been validated as leading to an new award or awards at the higher level
• there has been no significant change between the programme that led to the existing award and that which leads to the new award validated at a higher level.

Where the circumstances above have been met, the current awarding body which agreed the initial placement with the Authority (and the new awarding body, where the validation has been made by an awarding body other than that which agreed the original placement) will advise the Authority in relation to the revised placement of the individual award or sub-set of awards at a specific level in the Framework. The placement will be agreed between the Authority and the awarding body, or bodies, in question.

This process can thus result in the revised placement in the Framework of:

• individual existing awards, where they have initially been placed as parts of sets of related awards or subsets of individual awards, on the basis that they are no longer placed as part of the set or sub-set within which they were initially placed, or,
• subsets of individual existing awards, where they have initially been placed as a part of a set of related awards, on the basis that they are no longer placed as part of the set within which they were initially placed.

It should noted that the arrangements to enable the revision of placement, as outlined above, apply only in situations where programmes re-validated as leading to new awards feature no significant change from programmes that led to existing awards as originally placed. Where an amended programme is validated as leading to an award at a different level from that with which is was associated in the initial placement process, no revision of the initial placement is required or permitted.