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In 2008, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and its contractor, ETS Europe, failed to deliver Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 National Curriculum tests on time. Although the majority of scripts had been marked by the deadline for delivery of 8 July, a significant minority were outstanding, resulting in considerable disruption for many schools and children.
On 7 July 2008, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood was appointed by both the regulator, Ofqual, and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to chair an inquiry into the causes of the delivery failure. On the same day, this Committee started taking evidence on what happened during the 2008 testing cycle. During our inquiry, we took evidence from all the major parties, including both written and oral evidence from the contractor, ETS Europe in September 2008. Shortly thereafter, ETS withdrew its personnel and resources from the UK as a result of its contract with QCA being terminated and it announced that it would not be taking part in Lord Sutherland's inquiry. Lord Sutherland was, however, able to rely on the evidence we had already taken from ETS and documentary evidence available from QCA.
The Report of the Sutherland Inquiry, published on 16 December 2008, set out clearly the sequence of events leading up to the missed deadline for delivery of the National Curriculum tests in 2008 and made a series of recommendations. We have endorsed Lord Sutherland's work. Our inquiry has had a rather different focus and we have considered more widely than did Lord Sutherland the role of the Department in the events leading up to the delivery failure.
We have concluded that the Government should revisit the conduct of its relationships with its delivery agencies. Whilst acknowledging the difficulty of establishing the appropriate dividing line between policy and delivery, we believe that DCSF has involved itself too much in the detail of delivery, placing undue constraints on the executive decision-making abilities of its agency, QCA. We recommend that the leadership of government agencies should be more prepared to stand up to the Government when it considers that directions from the Government to the agency are unreasonable or incapable of performance.
We have also considered the role of DCSF observers on various boards and committees of non-departmental public bodies generally and QCA in particular. We have no objection in principle to the presence of such observers within a public body. However, in the case of QCA, we are concerned about the undue influence which appears to have been wielded by observers in terms of 'negotiating' formal advice from QCA to ministers and in seeking to influence QCA's decision-making. We consider that the role of departmental observers should be clarified and appropriate safeguards put in place to assure transparency and prevent inappropriate interference.
We recommend unequivocally that there should be no place for departmental observers within an independent regulator. The independence of the new regulator, Ofqual, should be put beyond question and that requires the relationship between DCSF and Ofqual to be conducted on a formal and transparent basis. The presence of CSF observers on Ofqual's Board would, in this context, be totally inappropriate.
Finally, we welcome the abolition of mandatory national testing at Key Stage 3 as a means of reducing the burden of testing on English school pupils; but warn against the unduly hasty introduction of single-level tests. There are considerable logistical complexities involved in delivering single-level tests twice each year and we recommend that the Government satisfies itself that the logistical arrangements are robust before introducing these tests as a replacement for the current testing regime. We also recommend that any significant future reform of National Curriculum testing must include an evaluation of on-screen marking.
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