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6 Dec 2007 : Column 1373W—continued

Although Jim Knight’s response indicated that the QCA is responsible for maintaining standards across qualifications and over time, it also stated that the level of information on grade boundaries that you are asking for is not held centrally. I am afraid that this means that QCA does not hold the information either. It is the awarding bodies that offer GCSE and A level qualifications who are responsible for setting grade boundary marks in each subject for every examination series.

Although I am unable to provide the data you request, I think it would be helpful to explain how the number of marks required to achieve a grade in any particular examination series is determined and which conclusions can be drawn from variations in the number of raw marks required to achieve a particular grade boundary each year.

For each discrete unit within a qualification (for example, there are currently six units in most A level qualifications) the mark required to achieve a particular grade is determined by an awarding body’s awarding committee according to a process that is set out in a code of practice issued by QCA. An awarding committee comprises the most senior examiners for a qualification. They are required to use professional judgment, supported by technical and statistical data, to ensure that standards are carried forward from year to year. In other words, the committee must ensure that the same level of performance will achieve the same grade across different years. However, as different question papers are used in each examination series it is possible that the demand of the question paper might not be
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identical year-on-year. To take into account unforeseen variances in the demand of question papers between years, the awarding committee may adjust the number of marks required to achieve a particular grade in any given year in order to ensure standards are maintained.

The awarding bodies that offer GCSE and A levels are AQA, Edexcel and OCR in England, WJEC in Wales and CCEA in Northern Ireland: Between them, each of these awarding bodies offers up to 50 different subjects at GCSE and 40 different subjects at A level. Some awarding bodies offer more than one qualification in each subject per qualification type. In addition there are now opportunities to sit GCSE examinations in March, November and June and A level examinations in January and June.

Therefore, answering your question would require the collection of an extremely large amount of data in the form of a list of each grade A and grade C boundary mark for each of the hundreds of GCSE and A level specifications in each of the examination series in each of the 10 years since 1997. The only inference that could realistically be taken from such data would be that mark boundaries have varied and, indeed must vary, in order to maintain standards. Furthermore, raw mark grade boundary data could also be misleading as they would not necessarily indicate where there have been changes in the total number of marks available in a particular examination component.

On previous occasions, QCA has investigated the issue of changes in grade boundaries to look at whether a change in grade boundary marks indicated a change in standards. We looked at a number of grade boundaries in English, English Literature and Mathematics over a number of years. In addition, QCA collected data from a wide range of GCSE and A level examinations in a single year. We concluded that changes in grade boundaries did not indicate a change in standards and that it would not be necessary for us to expand our investigation or collect data from a wider sample. I attach a copy of the report on this work.

However, all of this is in relation to raw mark grade boundaries only. A levels and modular GCSEs allow candidates to sit component parts of the same qualification in different examination series and because papers in different years will be of slightly differing demand a method of scaling is required to ensure that the same level of achievement would receive the same grade across examination series. This scale is the Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) and it enables units for which different amounts of marks are available to be aggregated across or within an examination series to give an overall grade. The percentage of UMS marks required to achieve a given grade does not vary. At GCSE the following percentage of the maximum uniform marks available for a component is required to achieve a particular grade: A* - 90% of the available uniform marks; A - 80%; B - 70%; C - 60%; D - 50%; E - 40%; F - 30%; G - 20%. At A level to following percentage of maximum uniform marks are required to achieve a particular grade: A - 80%; B - 70; C - 60%; D - 50%; E - 40%.

Although QCA is unable to answer your question in the terms in which you asked it, I hope that I have been able to provide you with information that you find to be of use.

Opinion Leader Research

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many contracts were awarded by his Department to Opinion Leader Research in each year since 1997 was; and what was (a) the title and purpose, (b) the cost to the public purse and (c) the dates of (i) tender, (ii) award, (iii) operation and (iv) completion and report to the Department. [165261]

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Kevin Brennan: The Department has contracted with Opinion Leader Research through the Central Office of Information (COI) Market Research Framework on 15 occasions since 2001. The details of those contracts are shown in the following table.

In addition, the Department also contracted with Opinion Leader Research through its own tendering processes to deliver, as part of the 10 Year Childcare Strategy, Parents’ Forums aimed to inform the
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consultation process on the strategy. The cost was £70,172.14. It was tendered in January 2005 and awarded on 25 January 2005. The project was carried out and a report on findings delivered to the Department on 23 March 2005.

Details of contacts with Opinion Leader Research prior to 2001 are not held centrally and to gather that data in order to answer this question would incur disproportionate costs.

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Title and purpose of the project	Cost (£)	Date to tender	Date of award	Date carried out	Date completed/findings put to Department
Student Funding
Strategic qualitative research, as part of a review of student funding in England, to understand fully how the current system is perceived and to pre test a number of alternative approaches	41,300.00	Direct Selection (option available for Framework Agreements)	September 2001	October- November 2001	November 2001
HE Positioning Research
Research as part of the review of student fees and loans to assess attitudes to the current arrangements and how best to communicate with key stakeholders	102,050.00	Direct Selection because it was a continuation of work they had completed in this area	August 2002	September to October 2002	October 2002
Secondary School Positioning W1
Consultation to establish how key audiences perceive future changes to secondary education	53,800.00	December 2002 Mini tendered to three organisations on the framework	December 2002	January to February 2003	February 2003
Supermarket research
Consultation exercise to test parents reactions to the concept and to some communications ideas	19,960.00	December 2003 Mini tendered to three organisations on the framework	December 2003	January 2004	February 2004
Supermarket research follow up
Research to assess the success of the pilot of the Parent Know How stand in 15 ASDA stores around London	59,950.00	July 2004 Mini tendered to three organisations on the framework	August 2004	September 2004	November 2004
Supermarket pilot pre-test
Creative development research to pre-test the look and feel of two design routes being used for a pilot for distributing information about education and related issues to parents via supermarkets	10,750.00	Direct select linked to previous project work	July 2004	July 2004	July 2004
Supermarket pilot research pre-test
Exit interviews on parent information booklet stands in supermarkets	18,500.00	Direct select—Continuation of Pilot evaluation from last year	July 2005	August 2005	September 2005
Supermarket research
Pilot campaign evaluation for the Parent Know How stand in 40 ASDA stores	113,900.00	Not tendered—Second part of ongoing research	August 2005	September- October 2005	November 2005
Supermarkets qualitative Booklets Research
Qualitative research to understand the overall appeal of the full range Parent Know How leaflets in terms of look, layout and content	17,040.00	Not tendered— Part of the Supermarket Research run by OLR	October 2005	September -October 2005	October 2005
London Challenge
Qualitative research to explore parents views of London schools and to generate and explore initial ideas for a communications campaign on behalf of London schools	12,000.00	Direct select OLR already working on a linked project	October 2005	October 2005	October 2005
Supermarkets Follow up phase 2
Consultation to assess the success of the pilot of the Parent Know How stand in 40 ASDA stores throughout the country	14,500.00	Direct selection Continuation of an ongoing project	March 2006	March 2006	March 2006
Every Child Matters
Creative Development research to test messaging alternatives relating to its Every Child Matters campaign	48,372.50	Direct selection	March 2006	April to May 2006	May 2006
Skills Challenge Public Debate
Deliberative event to start a process of engagement leading to the Governments response to the Leitch Review later in the year	130,625.00	January 2007 Mini tendered to three organisations on the framework	February 2007	February 2007	February 2007
Parental engagement with local authorities
Research to explore good practice in parental engagement, both for the specific local authorities who are taking part in the research and to disseminate to local authorities in general	89,933.00	June 2007 Mini tendered to three organisations on the framework	June 2007	July 2007	August 2007
Children’s Plan deliberative consultation
Deliberative events across England and wider community consultation, to inform the development of the Children’s Plan	318,401.00	August 2007 Mini tendered to three organisations on the framework	September 2007	October to November 2007	November 2007

Postal Services

Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many items of post sent by his Department and its predecessor were reported missing by the intended recipient in each year since 1997. [171295]

Kevin Brennan: The Department for Children, Schools and Families (and its predecessor), does not maintain historical records of items of post reported missing by the intended recipient. Any such mail reported missing to the Department’s mail rooms are dealt with on a case by case basis until an outcome can be determined and a resolution reached.

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