About

The Scottish Accreditation Board

The Scottish Accreditation Board (SAB) has been established and approved by the Home Office for the Accreditation of Training Programmes for people wishing to apply for Licences under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

Such training programmes are module-based and designed to meet the formal training requirements described in the 'Guidance for training and continuous professional development under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986', published in December 2023.

SAB currently accredits courses for ScotPIL, and the commercial providers Red Kite, Charles River and The Learning Curve.

The SAB is currently made up of representatives from the Universities of Glasgow, Stirling, Strathclyde and Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) together with colleagues who have a range of experience in areas such as training and animal technology in the UK. The registered office of SAB is at the University of Glasgow.

All Board members have considerable experience in working with animals and some have long experience with the delivery of the Training Programmes for potential licensees under the 1986 Act.

A requirement of Board membership is that members will take no part in licensee training courses while on the Board.

An emphasis of the Board's function is that all accreditation assessments will be made by experts in the appropriate field and all courses seeking accreditation will receive visits from accreditors during delivery of the course.

Accreditation of a course by SAB gives assurance to the trainees that the course provides a level of instruction and subsequent assessment at the theoretical and practical level appropriate for application to the Home Office for a Personal or Project Licence.

Successful completion by a trainee for a course accredited by SAB will be followed by issue of a certificate signed by the course provider and the SAB Company Secretary, which will enable the trainee to apply for a Personal or Project License.

The SAB meet at least three times each year and extra meetings can be called as required to meet the needs of Course Providers. Meetings can be face to face or via Zoom.

Requests for accreditation may be submitted from any Course Provider within the UK.

Representatives for SAB may also attend meetings for and with the other two Accrediting Bodies. These are Royal Society of Biology and Universities Accreditation Group. Representatives may act as an observer at meetings of the Tripartite Assessment Working Group (TAWG) and attend meetings with the Home Office/Animals in Science Regulations Unit (ASRU)

You can view our Memorandum and Articles of Association document here. This is a legal document which was prepared when SAB was incorporated in 2004. This document is a requirement under the Companies Act as well as being our 'Governing Document' as required by OSCR (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator).