Portfolios of evidence

A portfolios is a collection of documents which demonstrate knowledge based skills and work you have undertaken to be assessed as evidence to meet required skills outcomes.

An internal assessor will observe the candidate doing the everyday work of the trading standards service or review the candidate's submitted evidence or witness testimonies and assess their competence against laid down assessment criteria. Any and all the work that the candidate does can be evidence.

To understand the process of building a portfolio please read the process chart (PDF 82KB).

Structure of the portfolios

Each portfolio requires the completion of a number of defined tasks to meet the assessment criteria.

What type of evidence is required?

  • the Service Delivery Module stipulates the specific skills you need to demonstrate and the evidence for these you need to submit
  • documents can be in the form of reports, letters, computer printouts, photographs, observation reports, case files, emails...
  • evidence you provide should be two years old or less at the point you submit it for assessment unless discussed with your assessor and verifier

How are portfolios assessed?

There are three levels of assessment for your portfolio: internal assessment, internal verification and external verification. Internally

  • when assessing your performance or evidence the assessor will make a decision against each one of the assessment criteria.
  • if the assessor decides you have provided evidence of the necessary skills you will not be required to submit any further evidence.
  • if the assessor decides you have not yet provided sufficient evidence you will be expected to submit more

Portfolios should be assessed by all those involved on an ongoing process, task by task. Portfolios should not be end loaded, that is given to the assessor only when completed. 

Portfolio subject areas

Portfolios are required at each level of the qualification framework (FCATS, DCATS and HDCATS/HCCATS) and specific requirements can be viewed in the qualifications Resource Centre