The Scottish Qualifications Authority has decided to monitor standards over time of all its qualifications. Especially now that part of the Scottish National Qualifications Framework has been recently redesigned, there is a strong need of reassurance that standards are being maintained. The redesign, known as Higher Still development, brought an integration of vocational and academic qualifications. The SQA has made consistency over time one of its corporate performance indicators and set up a separate monitoring programme. This paper concentrates on two strands: 1)the methods used to start gathering, scrutinising, and archiving candidate evidence in Higher National Certificates and Diplomas and in Scottish Vocational Qualifications, and 2)the comparison of available evidence over time of external examinations (Highers). A few issues to be discussed are: added value to existing quality assurance system; available evidence of internal and external assessments; qualitative scrutiny of arrangements, assessments and performance evidence