I
Advisory, not assumption
The training provider remains the regulated entity, and the duty of care to the learner remains the training provider's. We work alongside the in-house team, never in place of it.
TPQA is the holistic quality-assurance assessment that decides whether an SSG-funded training provider keeps its funding. We prepare the practice for it, and for the Course Quality Check that now sits alongside it.
§ I · What TPQA is
A holistic quality assessment, not a paper exercise.
The Training Provider Quality Assessment is SSG's expansion of the earlier Post-Approval Quality Check. It assesses whether a Registered Training Provider has adopted a systematic approach to good training methods and industry-relevant courses, supported by good administration and corporate governance, and whether those processes are reflected in real outcomes for learners and enterprises.
In practice, this means SSG looks at your documented procedures and your implementation evidence side by side. Where the two diverge, the assessment lands in the wrong place.
A training provider scheduled for TPQA is given roughly two months to prepare its documents. SSG arranges a one-day onsite assessment about a month after the documents are submitted. We use those windows.
§ II · Our approach
Not a transfer of responsibility.
Engaging Twobirds is not a way to outsource regulatory accountability. Under the SSG framework, the obligation to deliver quality training rests, at all times, with the Registered Training Provider. Our work is advisory, and is intended to leave the training provider better governed than we found it.
In practice, that work falls into four pillars, set out in the order in which a training provider will typically encounter them.
The shape of the assistance we render.
II
Documentation, when manpower is short
Where the Management Representative and the in-house team are stretched, we draft, version-control and ready the documentation for submission, in the training provider's own voice and on the training provider's letterhead.
III
Corporate governance, strengthened
We advise on the governance structures that underwrite good training: the policy stack, the management review cycle, the trainer-records regime, the assessment integrity controls. A robust system pays for itself across cycles.
IV
Complimentary consultation
The first conversation is, and remains, free. We discuss industry best practices, the protocols in the latest SSG circulars, and the specific areas in which a training provider may fall short. There is no fee to ask, and no obligation to engage.
Track record
Two training providers, two Grade 1 outcomes.
We have walked alongside the senior teams at both Adept Academy and QD Academy through their respective TPQA cycles. In each case the grade returned was Grade 1. The outcome rests with the training providers themselves; the structure that supported the outcome is one we are glad to have helped build.
We congratulate the senior teams at both academies on their Grade 1 outcomes, and wish them continued success in their operations, in the standing they have earned with their learners, and in the engagements that will follow from it.
The TPQA procedure, in four movements.
The procedure is fixed by SSG. Where Twobirds adds value is in the rehearsal, preparing your team, your documents and your operating reality for the day SSG arrives. The working papers SSG publishes are linked alongside the step at which they apply.
Step I Self-Assessment Checklist
We work the SSG-issued checklist against your operating reality, page by page, and surface the gaps before SSG sees them.
Working papersStep II Application via TPGateway
Your Management Representative submits the application through TPGateway. We assemble and version-control the supporting documents in advance.
Step III Onsite Assessment
A team of SSG assessors conducts a one-day onsite visit, interviews staff and clarifies the documents sighted. We rehearse this in the fortnight leading up to it.
Step IV Case Closure
The grade and the assessment report are returned through TPGateway. Where review is appropriate, we help draft the response within the SSG procedure.
§ IV · Consequence of grade
Three grades. Three outcomes.
Under SSG Circular RD/2023/1, in force from 22 November 2023, failure to undergo the assessment when called, failure to submit documentation by the stipulated timeline, or failure to obtain the minimum quality grade each lead to the same outcome: termination of training-provider status and of SSG funding. The grades themselves break out as follows.
I
Grade 1 · the strong outcome
The training provider retains full eligibility for SSG funding under both Tier 1 and Tier 2 of the revised funding framework. This is the grade we work towards.
II
Grade 2 · the conditional outcome
The training provider retains eligibility for Tier 1 SSG funding only. Tier 2 funding is unavailable until reassessment. For PWM training providers, transitional provisions apply until 31 December 2026.
III
Grade 3 · the terminal outcome
Failure to undergo TPQA when requested, failure to submit by the stipulated deadline, or failure to obtain the minimum quality grade leads to termination of Registered Training Provider status, of SSG funding, and of eligibility for SkillsFuture Credit. A terminated training provider may only reapply after twelve months.
TPQA is not an administrative burden. Each criterion is also a return on investment.
SSG measures the practice across three criteria and twelve items. Each item, done well, returns something measurable to the business, whether in learner retention, governance posture or enterprise standing. The interactive dashboard below ranks the indirect benefit of each, from one star to five.
View
Click the stars to rate where your practice is today. 0 of 12 rated.
Criterion 1
Course Administration & Corporate Governance
How the practice runs, and how the practice is governed.
In this criterion0 / 30
- 1.1Learner Communication & Management of Feedback, Requests, and Appeals
A documented appeals channel deflects most disputes before they escalate. The feedback loop becomes your earliest indicator of curriculum drift.
- 1.2Pre-course and Post-course Advisory Service
The single biggest driver of completion rates and word-of-mouth referral. Pre-course advisory in particular reduces mismatched enrolment.
- 1.3Administration Systems
Operational savings, fewer manual handoffs and cleaner audit trails. Pays back across each cycle rather than at one point.
- 1.4Corporate Governance
The foundation on which every other system rests. A board that signs off on policy is a board that enterprise clients can trust to deliver.
- 1.5Management of Marketing Activities
Brand consistency and claim substantiation. Reduces the marginal cost of acquiring each learner and protects against misrepresentation complaints.
- 1.6Processes for Tracking and Monitoring Organisational Outcomes
Data is the only honest answer to 'are we improving?'. The systems built here become the dashboard the leadership team actually reads.
Where you are today0 / 600%
Score yourself by clicking the stars in each row.
Read in this light, the assessment looks less like an annual cost and more like a five-year inheritance. The training providers we advise tend to come back to us not because the next TPQA looms but because the year between assessments is the year in which a practice is, or is not, quietly tightened.
From the practice
Keith was a speaker at the 2025 TPQA Engagement.
In November 2025, SSG convened the annual TPQA outreach with training providers from across the sector. Keith was invited to speak on best practices in courseware development and pre-audit preparation.
Our belief is that the sharing of knowledge in our field should remain free. The deck SSG distributed at the engagement is available below; write to us if you would like to talk through how the practices in it might apply to your training organisation.
§ VI · Course Quality Check (CQC)
The check that sits alongside TPQA.
CQC was introduced in SSG Circular QMD/2024/7 and rolled out in phases from January 2025. Where TPQA looks at the training provider in the round, CQC looks at the courseware itself, the Learner Guide, the Trainer Guide, the Lesson Plan and the Assessment Plan as they are actually used in delivery.
CQC is typically a document review rather than a site visit. SSG places greater emphasis on newly approved courses, courses with high enrolment, and courses with weaker TRAQOM performance, and considers whether a training provider has recently undergone TPQA when selecting for the check.
The impact. CQC findings can lead to remedial action and, in serious cases, the withdrawal of funded-course status. Because CQC looks at materials currently in use, frequent review of courseware is no longer optional. We aid training providers in keeping their courseware abreast of current market conditions, the latest Skills Framework iteration and the prevailing assessment standards.
- Alignment of courseware
- with the approved learning outcomes and Technical Skills and Competencies on the course application.
- Principles of Assessment (POA)
- and the Rules of Evidence (ROE), applied to the actual assessment instruments in use, not the ones submitted at approval.
- Relevance of instruction
- courseware, instructional methods and learning materials measured against the course objectives and outline currently in market.