ENTERPRISE COMMITTEE PUBLISHES SQA EXAMS CRISIS INQUIRY REPORT

The Board of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) was fundamentally negligent in its handling of this year's school exams, says a highly critical report published today by the Parliament's Enterprise & Lifelong Learning Committee.

The unanimous, all-party report, however, clears Ministers and their officials of any direct blame, stating that there was no evidence to back claims that they had neglected their responsibilities.

Committee convener Alex Neil said:

"The remit of our inquiry was to focus on the governance of the SQA. Essentially, we defined this as the link from Ministers, down through Scottish Executive officials, to the Chair, Board of Management and Chief Executive of the SQA. What happened below this level, internally within the SQA is the subject of the Education Committee's inquiry report due out next week.

"Overall, we found that the pattern of governance was not the primary cause of the failure of the SQA. It was a management failure. However, the governance arrangements still failed to identify or prevent the crisis from happening.

"Throughout the system of governance, particularly at Board level, there was no systematic monitoring or assessment of performance. When things went catastrophically wrong, alarm bells did not ring and the dog did not bark.

"On the basis of evidence, our committee undoubtedly lays the burden of responsibility with the former Board of the SQA. We, therefore, support its decision to stand down. Although the Board did ask questions about the implementation of the Awards Processing System (the new exam data management system), it remained negligent in a number of ways:

• no thorough or effective risk assessment of the awards processing system was undertaken. The SQA therefore embarked on a high-risk strategy without appearing to be aware of that fact;
• it did not ensure that there was proper 'hard core' management information being produced which allowed implementation to be monitored - essentially the SQA did not know it had a problem until the last minute;
• it should have questioned the SQA management more thoroughly on the assurances it gave in response to the problems being experienced with data management, and reported to it by outside bodies;
• it agreed a corporate Plan for the SQA for 1999-2000 which stretched the organisation's capabilities to the limit, and which it was ultimately unable to deliver.

"The committee does not find the Ministers concerned negligent when anticipating or responding to the crisis. Information was not brought to their attention, largely due to failings within the SQA. Effectively, the SQA operated in an information vacuum.

"There was, however, a lack of a proper performance management framework within the Executive departments, which would have identified these pressures, and exposed the pervasive 'it will be alright on the night' attitude of the SQA.

"Our report does therefore criticise Ministers for not having a clearer overview of the strains present on the SQA. It should also be noted that the SQA's Corporate Plan, which burdened the organisation with a number of heavy tasks in 1999-2000, was signed off by Ministers.

"Devolution has clearly changed the nature of the relationship between Government and quangos in Scotland. Our inquiry raises wider issues in relation to Ministerial responsibility and accountability, which must be addressed by the Parliament as a whole."

Recommendations

The committee is keen to recommend improvements to overall governance arrangements, which should assist in the successful management of the 2001 exam diet and the longer-term stability of the exams process. However, it also advocates caution not to destabilise the SQA before the 2001 diet.

Specific details of the committee's recommendations can be found in the report's Executive Summary

The full report "Inquiry into the Governance of the Scottish Qualifications Authority" will be available on the Parliament's website from 10.30am on Thursday, November 30. For specific committee information contact: Simon Watkins, Clerk to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee: Tel 0131 348 5207 email: simon.watkins@scottish.parliament.uk For public information enquiries, contact: 0131 34 8500 For general enquiries, contact: 0845 278 1999 (local call rate) Visit our website at: www.scottish.parliament.uk