Government is to blame for SATs test chaos, says marking firm at centre of fiasco

Bosses from ETS Europe said the National Assessment Agency 'shared significant responsibility for the delivery failure' of crucial Key Stage test results.

They claimed the Government exams agency had taken too long to make decisions, withheld crucial information and made dramatic changes to the terms of the ETS contract after it had been agreed.

Grilling: Dr Philip Tabbiner with Andrew Latham, vice president of ETS Europe, in the Commons today

Dr Philip Tabbiner, senior vice president of ETS Global and chairman of the supervisory board of ETS Europe, today painted a devastating picture of 'procrastinating' and missed opportunities within the NAA.

This is the division of the government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority that was responsible for delivering the national curriculum tests.

His evidence is likely to increase pressure on Ken Boston, chief executive of the QCA, and David Gee, managing director of the NAA, to resign over the debacle.

The results of tests taken by children aged 11 and 14 in May should have been delivered before the summer holidays in July.

But massive delays left more than a million children waiting for results. Around 18,000 11-year-olds are still believed to be in limbo.

In evidence to the Commons' children, schools and families committee, Dr Tabbiner said there was 'no question' that his firm had experienced operational and technical difficulties which delayed the marking of tests.

Blame game: SATs contractor ETS Europe has laid blame for the fiasco over marking the tests on the Government

But he added: 'Through a combination of the NAA making changes to the contract - against our advice, delaying critical decision-making and layering on additional responsibilities, we ended up with a much more complex and challenging task.'

Dr Tabbiner, who was speaking publicly about the crisis for the first time, said that ETS and the NAA had worked closely together on the project.

But the NAA had gone against its advice and insisted on late changes to the way ETS was handling the tests.

Just two months before the tests were due to be sat, the NAA scrapped plans to train markers online and determined that there should be face-to-face training for all 10,000 markers.

This led to problems related to having to organise venues for staff and training.

It caused a knock-on delay of up to three to five months, the committee heard.

Dr Tabbiner said: 'Not only did this specifically impact future delivery milestones, but it also prohibited markers from going online and accessing training materials early.'

The committee heard later that the decision was taken after a pilot of online training showed markers were unhappy with the system.

Dr Tabbiner also claimed ETS was not supplied with 'critical information on operational failures experienced by previous suppliers that could have informed our decisions'.

He said ETS was not told that recruitment of Key Stage Three English markers had been a problem in previous years for previous contractors and that the NAA had told them that, in the past, 100 per cent of results had been returned on time when this had not been the case.

Asked whether in his view there was a significant difference between what ETS was contracted to do and being asked to deliver, Dr Tabbiner replied: 'Absolutely.'

Dr Tabbiner said his company had lost £50million on the contract and asked for it to be terminated in June this year.

Select committee members pointed out that Dr Boston had given evidence to them just a month later but had not disclosed this crucial fact.

Dr Tabbiner told the committee ETS had been prevented from giving its evidence to Lord Sutherland's independent inquiry into the delays due to a confidentiality agreement with QCA.

Kathleen Tattersall, chair of England's exam regulator Ofqual, was asked by the committee whether she believed the QCA was blameless.

She said: 'It is very difficult to answer that question that's why we've asked for an independent inquiry.'

She said it was difficult to know whether anybody 'will come out of this blameless' and there was quite possibly 'some responsibility by all parties concerned'.