Recruiters increasingly depend on service that aims to drive down degree fraud.

Prospects Hedd, the UK higher education system’s official qualification verification service, has reached the landmark of passing one million verifications for employers and education institutions.  

The service was founded in 2011 and helps recruiters check if applicants have the qualifications they claim and if they attended the institutions that awarded them.  

Verification requests are steadily increasing, year on year. Hedd currently checks more than 20,000 qualifications a month and it is predicted it will pass the 2 million verifications mark in less than three years.  

It operates on behalf of UK universities to verify qualifications centrally. It collaborates with enforcement bodies such as the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau and several overseas authorities, to investigate and force closures of bogus universities and unauthorised providers. 

Hedd has identified more than 300 bogus organisations and helped to force more than 80 to close.  

The one-million verifications milestone – as well as the increasing popularity of the service – illustrates the importance of dealing with degree fraud to protect institutions from reputation damage. Chris Rea, Jisc’s head of commercial services, student services, said:  

“We are delighted to have reached this significant achievement. Qualification fraud is a growing and challenging problem for the UK education system. By stopping individuals from cheating, we are helping to create confidence and add value to the UK’s qualification system. Verification by verification, we are making a difference.  

“After 11 years building the service and streamlining our customer service, we are delighted to verify our millionth qualification. We are seeing an increase in demand as employers realise the importance of qualification verification, and we project that we will pass 2 million verifications in under three years.”