Qualiopi indicator 10 (service adaptation): expected evidence and mistakes to avoid

Indicator 10 is the moment when the Qualiopi framework leaves the paperwork and enters the training room: does the service actually delivered match what was designed and contracted, and does it adjust to learners’ needs? It is a core indicator, sanctioned by a major non-conformity, and one of those where the auditor digs most concretely. Here is what it requires, the evidence that holds up in audit and the gaps that appear most often in reports.

What indicator 10 requires

Attached to criterion 3 (reception, support, monitoring and assessment), indicator 10 requires providers to implement and adapt the service, reception, support and follow-up to the beneficiary publics. The indicator 10 fact sheet sets out the exact wording; in practice, the requirement reads in two stages:

• implement: the actual service must match what was designed and contracted — same content, same durations, same delivery modes as in the programme and the contract;
• adapt: the pathway must adjust to needs that emerge along the way, without waiting for the final review.

Indicator 10 thus bridges design (criterion 2) and the reality on the ground. What you promised at entry-level educational positioning and in your contractual documents must show up, evidence in hand, in the actual delivery. Three points to keep in mind:

• core indicator: it applies to all categories of providers (training organisations, apprenticeship centres, VAE, skills assessments) — see the table of the 32 indicators;
• no new-entrant arrangement: it cannot be deferred to the surveillance audit;
• major non-conformity in the event of a gap.

What the auditor actually checks

On this indicator, the auditor does not settle for a procedure: they cross-check the design documents against the delivery evidence. Their method is almost always the same: they pick a few learner files at random and try to reconstruct their actual pathway, from first contact to the end of the service.

Concretely, they compare:

• the programme and the contract (durations, schedule, delivery modes);
• the delivery evidence (attendance sheets, connection logs, deliverables);
• the traces of follow-up and adaptation (check-ins, reminders, accommodations).

If the signed hours do not match the contracted hours, or if a learner who was visibly struggling left no trace of being taken care of, the gap is immediate. The best preparation is to run this exercise yourself before the audit, file by file, as part of your audit preparation checklist.

Delivery evidence: attendance, connections, monitoring

The foundation of indicator 10 is the evidence that the service really took place as planned:

• attendance sheets or connection logs consistent with the contracted schedules — the attendance sheet is not imposed as such by the framework, but it is the most universally accepted evidence for face-to-face delivery; for distance learning, connection logs and activity-completion records carry the weight;
• a learner monitoring table recording attendance, progress, difficulties encountered and actions decided;
• check-in or individual support meeting notes, even brief ones, dated and attached to the file;
• reminders sent to absent or inactive learners, with the funder informed where applicable — a subject directly connected to absence and drop-out: consequences for invoicing;
• for distance learning: usable completion dashboards.

The format matters less than the consistency: an up-to-date spreadsheet beats sophisticated software that nobody fills in. What sinks a file is the unexplained gap between what was contracted and what was delivered.

Adapting: the decided, traced, communicated loop

“Adapting” does not mean renegotiating everything all the time. It means adjusting the pathway when the situation requires it: an adjusted pace for an employed trainee, a support session after a disappointing mid-course assessment, an accommodation for a learner with a disability, a change of delivery mode (switching a sequence to distance learning, for instance).

The requirement is about traceability: every adaptation must be decided, traced and communicated. The typical evidence is simple:

• an amendment to the contract or agreement when the accommodation changes the commitments;
• an accommodation email exchanged with the learner or the client;
• a note in the file recording the difficulty detected, the decision taken and its implementation.

This documented loop — detection, decision, action, trace — is what the auditor tries to reconstruct. And it is anything but an administrative formality: Benjamin S. Bloom, in “The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as One-to-One Tutoring”, published in 1984 in Educational Researcher, showed that individualised follow-up and continuous pathway adjustments (mastery learning, tutoring) produce learning gains of up to two standard deviations compared with standard group instruction. In other words, the monitoring and adaptation required by indicator 10 are a documented pedagogical lever — not one more constraint. Responsive follow-up is also your best tool to prevent training drop-outs.

The special case of asynchronous e-learning

Fully asynchronous delivery is the most slippery ground for indicator 10: with no classroom and no live trainer, the temptation is to let the platform “do the monitoring”. The auditor expects the opposite — an active monitoring arrangement:

• a completion dashboard consulted regularly, not merely archived;
• documented reminders in the event of inactivity (email, phone call, platform message);
• scheduled synchronous check-ins (virtual classes, one-to-one interviews);
• identified support, with response times known to learners.

Connection logs and activity-completion records are the raw material of the demonstration: our guide to attendance evidence in distance learning explains how to build and archive them properly.

The frequent mistakes on indicator 10

The gaps found in audit look alike from one provider to the next:

• unexplained gaps between contracted hours and signed hours — the most visible gap and the fastest sanctioned;
• no individualised follow-up: no monitoring table, no check-ins, no view of anyone’s progress;
• real adaptations never traced: the organisation did adjust a pace or add support sessions, but nothing in the file proves it;
• distance learning with no completion evidence and no reminders: learners enrolled on a platform, data never used;
• untreated absences: no reminder to the learner, no information to the funder;
• incomplete or scattered learner files spread across mailboxes, spreadsheets and paper folders.

These gaps regularly feed the list of the most frequent non-conformities. The remedy comes down to one rule: every learner must have a file that can be reconstructed in a few minutes, from the contract to the adaptation traces.

Take action

The Complete Kit Certif (€297, 14-day guarantee) includes the learner monitoring table, the check-in meeting note templates, the absentee reminder templates and the evidence table for indicator 10. The ebook “Create your training organisation in 30 days” (€67) sets up the monitoring arrangement from your organisation’s creation, and the full pack (€347) bundles both.