Firm faces fines over delayed tests

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Results of national tests for 11 and 14-year-olds were due to be published last week, but an administrative fiasco delayed the marking.

In a statement to an emergency Commons committee meeting, Ken Boston, head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) apologised for the failure of contractor ETS Europe to have the Key Stage 2 and 3 results ready for publication on July 8.

And he said the delay may have "very significant" financial consequences.

He said: "I think there has been severe reputational damage in relation to the failure at this level, which any large company would be concerned about. There are financial penalties that could run into tens of millions of pounds."

He said that large, international companies such as ETC operate in various parts of the world but that the "experience in England has clearly been unsatisfactory".

Dr Boston listed a host of problems including problems with recruiting and retaining markers, and delays in getting papers to them. Markers had also been given wrong information about the time and location of training, call centres were unable to deal with calls and there had been "slow and unpredictable" data feeds. Some unmarked scripts had also been returned to schools.

Dr Boston told the committee that the QCA had done "everything possible" to ensure ETS could deliver the results to school on time.

He said: "We have had up to 70 of our own staff co-located with ETS, providing technical support, developing communications for schools and markers, establishing emergency marking centres, supporting call centres, managing and recruiting for data entry centres, and supporting the management of scripts."

He said the QCA was now "exploring all possible commercial and legal avenues to ensure that suitable action for this failure is taken."