What is the difference between a regulated and a non-regulated qualification?

CPCAB’s progression route qualifications are regulated by Ofqual in England, Qualifications Wales in Wales and CCEA in Northern Ireland. This means that the design, delivery and assessment of that qualification has been mapped to national standards in the UK. This means that your qualification will be understood by education providers and employers in the UK, but also internationally as it has been levelled against all other forms of education in the UK.

This protects things like the level and title of the qualification. For example, CPCAB cannot call a regulated qualification a ‘Level 4’ unless it is the same level of difficulty as other regulated Level 4 qualifications in the UK. We also cannot call something an ‘Award’, ‘Certificate’ or ‘Diploma’ unless they are a certain length.

If a qualification is not regulated, a training centre can say a course is a level 7 diploma, when it is perhaps the difficulty of a level 2, and the length of an award. So regulation provides you with a guarantee that you get what it says ‘on the tin’ so to speak.

Being regulated also means that CPCAB follow a range of regulations that guide us on best practice in awarding, and gives learners a higher level of authority to complain to if we fall short of these regulations. CPCAB choose to be regulated as we believe in providing high quality training, and ensuring learners are provided with every opportunity to progress in the profession of their choice.

CPCAB do also offer Tailormade qualifications. These are not regulated because they are designed in a bespoke way with the specialist centres who wish to offer them. However, when designing these we map them to the same standards as our regulated qualifications so that they offer an excellent custom-made choice in more niche areas of counselling or helping work.