Q
183Mr.
Walker: But you will be exploring
it? Kathleen
Tattersall: What we will be doing as a regulator is
looking at the evidence, particularly where there are any issues of
public concern. If that issue is a matter of public concern, clearly we
will be seeking evidence on it, but there are a range of other issues
where our starting point would always be to look at the evidence and to
come to a considered judgment on the
evidence.
Q
184Mrs.
Miller: May I jump in there? If you do not believe that
there has been a problem with grade inflation, why are we setting up
Ofqual? Kathleen
Tattersall: Ofqual has been set up to regulate the
system, to get better public accountability for the system, to ensure
that there is a better public understanding of the issues and to assure
public confidence. That is what regulators do. I do not think that it
has been set up to address any specific concerns, such as the one that
was just mentioned. However, where there are other concerns, a body
such as Ofqual will be better placed, because of its independence,
particularly from Government, and its accountability to Parliament, to
look at any particular issue, come to a view on it and make a
report.
Q
185Mr.
Walker: You said that Ofqual was not there to address
specific concerns such as the ones that have been raised?
Kathleen
Tattersall: The reason for Ofqual being established
was not necessarily related to a specific concern. It was to do with
public confidence in the qualification systems as a whole. What you
mentioned may be a specific
concern.
Q
186Mr.
Walker: You know full well that we have just been talking
about the annual grade inflation debate that is centred on A-levels and
GCSEs, so, with the greatest of respect, it would be remarkable if you
did not think that you had been primarily set up to deal with that set
of
concerns. Kathleen
Tattersall: We have been set up to address issues of
public confidence in the qualification system. Where there are specific
concerns, clearly we have the powers under this Bill to look at them
and to come to a considered view, based on the evidence. I will take a
different sort of issue, because there were concerns last year about
the national curriculum test and Ofqual took action on that by setting
up a public inquiry. So it would be precipitate of me to draw any sort
of conclusion at this particular time without having considered the
evidence in the manner that Ofqual says it will consider the evidence
before it makes any public announcements.
Q
187Mr.
Walker: So who are you regulating? How many bodies do you
regulate? Kathleen
Tattersall: We are regulating a system that
comprises the general qualifications awarding bodies, which are
represented here by Greg and Mike. There is a third awarding body,
Edexcel, which is not represented here today. We have fellow regulators
regulating similar bodies in Wales and in Northern Ireland. There are a
host of vocational qualifications bodies. In fact, I have just had a
note passed to me to say that there are 150 awarding bodies in all that
come within the regulator’s system. Most of those are in the
vocational field; some of them are newly admitted employers, who also
have the responsibility to make
awards.
Q
188Mr.
Walker: What concerns have been raised regarding
vocational qualifications that you are aware of?
Kathleen
Tattersall: Vocational qualifications need to be
seen to represent the standards of the particular industries in which
they operate. There are sector skills councils, which act as a filter
for employers, to ensure that the skills and qualities which employers
are looking for are well represented in the vocational field. It is
important that the vocational examinations which are provided actually
fulfil a purpose which
employers—
Q
189Mr.
Walker: I asked what concerns have been raised that you
are aware of.
Kathleen
Tattersall: The concerns are sometimes that the
skills are not those which employers want. The concerns are sometimes
that the competences are not set at a level which employers regard as
appropriate. Those are the issues in the vocational field which we will
be looking at very carefully under the rules and regulations that we
have through this Bill.
Q
190Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: I want to give Andrew an opportunity to
contribute. Everybody has been mainly focusing on Ofqual so far. What
do you think these changes mean for QCDA? Is it good news for you and
are there going to be big differences?
Andrew
Hall: I think it is fundamentally very good news for
QCDA. It removes some of the potential internal mental blockages that
perhaps prevented us in the past from being as rigorous as we could be
in doing our delivery jobs. I remember that when I joined the
organisation over two years ago, we would sit there and say we designed
things for the Government, we worked closely with the
Government—that was part of our remit—we reformed
qualifications, we delivered assessments. Then in the same legal
organisation, we had a potential regulator sitting there. We know from
the way we operate that there was no interference, that there was
independence. But the public perception was quite hard to see in that
position. So I think, truthfully, it was very clear and very good news.
It was my first comment when I walked through the door: why do we do
this? So actually, it lets us do that. It lets us focus very clearly on
perhaps adding more value to the development chain. We are clear that
we can challenge the awarding bodies in another type of independent way
that says we are here to provide advice and support and some creative
challenge around the process, and do not have to worry about being seen
to regulate ourselves.
Q
191Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: How are you going to work with Ofqual to
make sure that the transition is, to use the old-fashioned term, a
seamless transition?
Andrew
Hall: Seamless transitions, I think, are sometimes a
dream. The reality is that there is a lot of work that has had to go
into planning how we do this. As accounting officer, I am, as of today,
still responsible for many of the aspects of Ofqual’s
accountabilities, and that is a fact of life. You cannot walk away from
that. The way we dealt with that was to set up a number of internal
processes that very clearly segregate what is the regulatory activity
that is a process and an output and a product, and we have helped
Ofqual build the capacity to do that. We have provided the legal
support, the financial support and the system support to deliver what
they needed to do.
Probably the
most challenging area is around qualification development, where
historically there is someone who develops the criteria that go into
the qualifications that awarding bodies produce, and then regulates
those criteria as they are delivered. It is in that process that we
have put a considerable amount of work into developing two teams that
have worked together for about six months to really tease out the
nuances in there. I think we just need to continue to drive that
process for however long it is until vesting day, and make sure we
support the operational transfer, the systems transfer that leaves
Ofqual properly resourced to go forward and do its
job.
Q
192Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: Do you think the Bill has everything in it
to enable you to fulfil your job properly?
Andrew
Hall: There are some minor details around
transitional arrangements on which we have dealt with the officials,
but fundamentally it has everything we need to do what we want to do.
It is for us almost a dream ticket, because it makes it very clear what
we have to do.
Q
193Mr.
Hayes: It seems from what you said today, from the earlier
submissions, that there are three big issues: autonomy, consistency and
credibility. So in turn, does the Bill, in its current form, offer
sufficient
autonomy? Some of your earlier remarks suggest that it should offer
greater autonomy through the different forms of parliamentary scrutiny
you described, as well as by other means. Secondly, on
consistency—again judging from what you have said here and
elsewhere—there are real issues about maintaining consistency
across qualifications. One thinks of modular and non-modular
qualifications, for example. How do you see that working?
Thirdly, in
terms of credibility, is there not a poacher and game-keeper issue?
What if you have people on the board that might be setting or marking,
or have set or marked, exams? There is nothing to stop professors of
education in educational faculties, or academics who write exam papers,
from being on the board, is there? How are you going to guarantee real
independence, which provides credibility, unless you sort out that
potential for conflicts of
interest? Kathleen
Tattersall: I think the question was probably
addressed to me. May I take the last point, because I think that it has
been covered to some extent in the earlier answers? The whole process
of appointments to the Ofqual board has to be a very open, public
process and one involving the Public Standards Board. Greg also
helpfully mentioned that Parliament itself will have an opportunity to
scrutinise the process. I think that conflicts of interest have to be
addressed at that particular stage, it has to be clear that whoever is
appointed, whatever their interests might be—whether they come
from an employment or an educational background—that those
conflicts of interest are going to be managed. In public life, people
do manage conflicts of interest in a very open way. The worst conflicts
of interest are those that you do not know about. What we need is a
very open process whereby everyone will understand the background of
the person concerned. I think that that is a manageable
process. Secondly,
when we come to consistency, the regulator will require awarding bodies
that offer the same qualification to act in a consistent manner,
particularly with regard to the setting of standards. We can do that
through working with the awarding bodies—it is important that we
start with the premise that we do work with them because they have a
lot of expertise, great professionalism and a commitment to ensuring
that standards are maintained from year to year and are appropriate to
the qualification concerned. It is appropriate that our starting point
will always be working with the awarding bodies to ensure that we have
an agreement about how we are going to address issues where
inconsistent behaviour could lead to different standards. If we cannot
achieve that through consensus, then the Bill gives us the power of
direction and that is what we would have to rely
on. I
am sorry, I have forgotten your first
point.
Q
194Mr.
Hayes: My first point was about autonomy. It seems that by
looking at OCR and others, for example, you have said today and
previously that there are other means by which autonomy could be
demonstrated, other lines of accountability. In Parliament, we have
heard some debate about whether Select Committees should be involved in
that. Is autonomy not implicitly, intrinsically linked to
credibility? Kathleen
Tattersall: Indeed it is. That is why I believe it
is very important that the Bill not only gives us the independence and
the autonomy, but that it is also seen to do so. Perception is a very
important element of how
people understand autonomy and independence. It is not just the words on
the page, it is actually how it is all
enacted. Moving
to appointments, the Secretary of State will approve appointments to
the board. I do not think that it is explicit in the Bill, but it would
certainly be my expectation that the Ofqual chair would be involved in
that appointment process. It may be that there needs to be some thought
given as to whether that should be explicit in the Bill, as I believe
it is in the case of the UK Statistics Authority. There is also a
little bit in the Bill about the Secretary of State approving the
numbers of Ofqual staff, terms and conditions of service and so on. I
understand that that is all part of the accountability of Ofqual on
matters that have an effect on the spending of Ofqual. It may be that
there are other ways of looking at that, rather than giving an
impression that the Secretary of State is, as it were, in control of
Ofqual. Of course, again, that would undermine the perception, even
though the reality behind the perception might be somewhat different.
There are ways in which the Committee’s scrutiny of the Bill
might address some of the concerns that you have expressed here, and
might demonstrate more clearly that Ofqual is a body that is truly
independent of
Government.
Q
195Mr.
Hayes: However, when the structure of qualifications
changes, it is hard to have a clear idea of how you can regulate to
ensure consistent standards, is it not? They were your words, not
mine.
Kathleen
Tattersall: That is always the point, of course, at
which the issue of standards comes very much to the fore, and setting a
standard for a new qualification is a difficult challenge for all
concerned. It is a challenge for the awarding bodies and it will be a
challenge for the regulator. That is why it is so important that we
have a means of talking with the awarding bodies at an early stage
about how those standards should be set and how a continuity with
previous standards must be established. The Bill gives Ofqual the
authority to take the lead on that, and to ensure that we all have a
clear understanding of how we will go about setting standards for any
new qualifications that come
along.
Q
196Jeff
Ennis: My first question is specifically to Mr.
Watson about a memorandum that was submitted on behalf of the OCR. In
particular, I refer to the issue of independence and what you perceive
to be certain powers that the Secretary of State will retain in terms
of not having sufficient independence in respect of Ofqual. Will you
enlarge on the main concerns that you
have? Greg
Watson: There is one particularly important area that
the Committee might find useful to explore during the Bill. That is the
process by which qualifications are developed. To clarify, in the
qualifications system, bodies like OCR, AQA and others develop
qualifications. We write the syllabuses and, from the syllabuses, we
write exams and other kinds of assessments. From those, we set
standards and award qualifications. The regulator is established to
oversee that and—if I can use an aviation analogy—make
sure that those planes are fit to fly.
As in the
aviation or food industry, the crucial job of a regulator is at the
start of that process. It must make sure that only planes that are fit
to fly are allowed to
take to the air and only food that is fit to eat is put on supermarket
shelves. That is important because it might be tempting to think that
the regulator needs lots of powers only at the end of the process to
beat up awarding bodies when the standards do not add up. However, most
of the risk in the qualifications arena is when qualifications are
created, and we would like to see Ofqual able to assert its
independence powerfully at that point. If one reads
only the Ofqual chapter in the Bill, it would seem that that is the
model we are moving towards. However, an alternative route through this
process is suggested if one reads the Ofqual chapter and the
Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency together, along with
the accompanying notes. That process would begin with Ministers, and
pass through QCDA, which might be heavily involved in developing the
criteria against which qualifications are licensed. Only then would
Ofqual have the opportunity to either say yes or no,
often—presumably—under some pressure to say yes.
Ofqual’s role is then simply reduced to monitoring the
qualification as it rolls out and trying to deal with any difficult
features of the qualifications as they
unfold. We
think that it is worth exploring whether the intent that is clear in
the Ofqual chapter of the Bill still stands up when the QCDA chapter,
schedules and explanatory notes are stacked up; that suggests more of a
subtle interplay between the bodies than we think the Secretary of
State might want to achieve.
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