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The Higher Education Quality Council has attacked a Scottish review of teaching quality assessment for its comments on academic quality audit, writes Olga Wojtas.

The Miller review group, set up jointly by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals, last month published its recommendations on improving SHEFC's quality assessment system.

But the HEQC says it is "surprised and alarmed" to find this includes conclusions on quality audit, particularly as the HEQC was not represented on the group.

The Miller review said that while the existing system of comprehensive quality audit had been important in developing quality assurance procedures, its contribution to teaching quality assessment should be limited in future.

Audit visits had put a considerable burden on institutions, it said, concluding that "audit should not be applied routinely to aspects of provision which are fully covered by quality assessment".