What is the BCAB Audit?

The British Canoeing Awarding Body Audit is a formal review process designed to ensure that Delivery Centres like Paddle Scotland are upholding the quality, consistency, and integrity of national paddlesport awards and qualifications. This includes checks on our governance, record-keeping, support for coaches and tutors, learner experiences, and quality assurance and internal verification.

What is Internal Verification?

Our quality assurance (QA) framework relies on Internal Verification (IV), a crucial process involving the ongoing review and sampling of assessments. This ensures fairness, consistency, and adherence to expected standards. 

Why Does the Audit Matter?

The audit is not just a tick-box exercise — it plays a crucial role in maintaining the credibility of paddlesport qualifications across the UK. It ensures that learners receive high-quality training and assessment experiences, and that our organisation meets the rigorous criteria expected by a national awarding body. The audit outcome demonstrates that Paddle Scotland remains a trusted provider of British Canoeing qualifications.

This year’s Audit Outcome

“Paddle Scotland has maintained full compliance while actively enhancing their quality assurance procedures and policies. This has resulted in a well-supported, informed provider and national trainer network, along with an engaged learner community. These achievements come amidst significant organisational restructuring challenges. A thorough induction and handover process for new personnel during this period has positioned Paddle Scotland favourably for the new year or CASS [Centre Assessments Standard Scrutiny] going forward.”

Paddle Scotland’s Centre Risk Rating has been raised to Medium Risk from Low, this is due to significant organisational restructuring in the past 18 months. There will be extra support from the Awarding Body to the Delivery Centre over the next 12 months. As Paddle Scotland has maintained full compliance there will be no increase in IV Sampling. 

During the audit, our IV and QA systems were tested and recognised as robust, well-maintained, and effective, with clear methods to support improvement and development. This helps to uphold the credibility and reliability of all qualifications issued through Paddle Scotland. No actions have been required with a few helpful recommendations suggested to assist in improving our QA and IV processes.

This positive result is a testament to the diligent efforts of our tutors and providers in consistently delivering and assessing awards to the highest standards, and to the staff team for their hard work to implement and maintain QA systems. Thank you and well done!

What This Means for You

For paddlers, coaches, tutors and providers across Scotland, this result confirms that you’re learning and working with an organisation that puts safety and quality first. We’re proud of our team and partners for their ongoing dedication to delivering excellent paddlesport opportunities, and we remain committed to continuous improvement.

Allan McKay, Interim Chair of the Paddle Scotland Board, says "This is a huge achievement and a significant amount of time and effort has gone into this process over the last few months. Paddle Scotland is committed to upholding the highest standards of delivery, and are proud of our talented staff team who work hard to achieve this. On behalf of the Board I would like to sincerely thank Lara, Noush, Adam and everyone else involved in this fantastic achievement."

The Paddle Scotland team will reflect on the recommendations and continued feedback we receive from the membership to inform our improvement and development moving forward. 

Lara Cooper remains as our Lead IV Officer and Adam Burns as an IV Officer. Noush Duffy is the Delivery Centre Manager. Together they will arrange our internal verification sampling for the year ahead.

Thank you to everyone involved — here’s to more safe, skilled, and successful adventures on the water!