Hi Erin,
I read through your post and it provided some useful information around the scale configuration.
We have setup one framework on our live Moodle site that has its scale configuration all correct so that's all fine. As you say I can go back and delete the scale that was created during the import but that is going to be a real pain once we start to import hundreds of BTEC courses.
The importer shouldn't really create a new scale if one can be found using the configuration column from the database. The scale configuration as far as I can tell is a JSON string and could be easily used to check to see if the Id already exists and then use that as part of the configuration for the new framework.
We may have gotten around this issue by push/pulling information from the Moodle database. We are creating our own student portal/Staff management site and we are going to automate a lot of this process by getting the information from our curriculum database.
Thanks for your help Erin,
Alex