ABSTRACT
The quality assurance agency for Higher Education (HE) was established to develop and oversee a comprehensive and integrated United Kingdom-wide approach to assuring quality and standards in HE. In this chapter, the author focuses on two related areas of policy that the he was responsible for namely, programme specifications and progress files. In both areas of policy brokerage attempted to balance the requirement for enhanced public information about the nature and outcomes of learning with promoting good educational principles and values. Brokerage involved knowledge development aimed at testing ideas and progressively codifying thinking in policy statements and guidance. The scale and nature of public debate, the way in which key groups were targeted and involved in the development process, and the broker's role in mediation, all contributed to producing workable policy and helped create the conditions to enable policy to be introduced.
