Government blamed over Sats fiasco

The Department for Children, Schools and Families involved itself too much in the detail of the testing process, according to a report by the Commons schools select committee.

It said this put pressure on the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the Government agency responsible for overseeing the tests, and led to confusion about the arrangements.

Committee chairman Barry Sheerman said there were "significant flaws" in the way the DCSF managed its relationship with the QCA.

The report concluded: "We are concerned that the DCSF appears to be specifying in considerable detail the ways in which it wishes to see its policies executed."

More than one million schoolchildren were left waiting for marks last summer after a series of blunders, including a failure to train markers on time.

An independent inquiry into the fiasco, led by Lord Sutherland, heaped blame by the QCA and its contractor ETS Europe, although the Government escaped relatively unscathed. But the latest report, based on evidence given to the committee about the fiasco, raised concerns about the role of Government observers sitting in on meetings of the QCA. While they may have a legitimate role, the report said observers should not "exert undue influence over the decision-making of a public body".

Schools Minister Vernon Coaker said: "We are pleased that the Select Committee has endorsed Lord Sutherland's independent inquiry, which clearly shows that the test contractor, ETS, was responsible for the disruption to the 2008 tests, and that there were also failings in the QCA (now the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, QCDA). Major changes have now been made at QCDA - with a new test contractor for the 2009 test cycle, a new chief executive, a new remit in place and, most importantly, 99.9% of test results were returned to schools on time this year."

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The select committee is rightly hard-hitting about last year's tests' failures and is right also to pinpoint the DCSF's involvement in those failures."

A QCDA spokesman said: "We accepted the various recommendations that Lord Sutherland made and successfully delivered results to schools this year. QCDA remains committed to working with the DCSF and our various partners to ensure that accurate and timely information is available on each child's achievements."