Excerpts from the letter from Ken Boston to Barry Sheerman MP, Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee:

“As you are aware, I resigned as Chief Executive of the QCA on 12 December

2008. On 31 March 2009 the QCA Board was given Government approval to

accept the resignation. During the interval of more than three months I was

under so-called 'suspension'. With the belated acceptance of the resignation,

the public silence imposed by that particular form of house arrest is over. I

now hope again to contribute constructively to the national discussion of

issues relating to curriculum, assessment, qualifications and skills, although

regrettably from outside the system rather than from within.”

“In his prepared statement to the House of Commons on the release of the

Sutherland Report on 16 December 2008 – and in his answers to Michael

Gove and David Laws - the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and

Families set out to demonstrate (1) that I had been complacent in my

management of the delivery of the key stage tests; and (2) that I had

repeatedly been pressed for answers by Ministers on numerous occasions,

the most recent being 17 June 2008, and had given them strong

reassurances that the tests were on track. He drew heavily on paragraphs

4.92 and 4.93 of the Sutherland Report (page 77) and on paragraph 4.137

(page 85). The Secretary of State and the Schools Minister, Jim Knight again

relied extensively on these three paragraphs in their evidence to the Select

Committee on Children, Schools and Families on 4 February 2009.

Paragraph 4.92 quotes evidence given to Lord Sutherland by Jim Knight, who

says that he met with me and David Gee, the head of the NAA (the

assessment division of QCA) on 17 June. Knight's evidence implies that I was

complacent and disengaged at the meeting, and left everything to David Gee.

Paragraph 4.93 refers to DSCF’s notes of the meeting, at which I am alleged

to have been present.

This is fiction. I was not at the meeting Jim Knight arranged with David Gee,

nor had I been asked to attend. The DCSF note of the meeting does not in

fact list me as one of the attendees. Further, there was no meeting between

Jim Knight, David Gee and me, on any date during the period covered by the

events into which Lord Sutherland was asked to inquire.

Paragraph 4.137 (page 85) is about the escalation of risk by QCA to DCSF

during the test delivery period up to the time of the failure, which became

apparent on 25 June. It was quoted in full by the Secretary of State in the

House of Commons, and again two months later in his evidence to the Select

Committee and reads as follows:

'In practice what happened in 2008 was that DSCF observers escalated their

own assessment of risks to the DCSF ministers on a number of occasions. On

this basis, ministers usually pressed QCA's Chief Executive for answers. At

this point, because information was not being escalated within QCA

effectively, ministers were given strong reassurances by QCA that all was on

track. As late as 17 June when the Schools Minister met QCA's Chief

Executive and NAA's Managing Director, they provided reassurances.’

This too is fiction. Not only was I not present at the June 17 meeting, but until

the delivery failure at the end of June I had had only two meetings with the

DCSF Ministers in 2008. David Gee was present at neither of them. On 18

March the QCA Chairman, Sir Anthony Greener and I met with Ed Balls and

Jim Knight – at QCA request - to discuss the future of the QCA. The national

curriculum tests were mentioned only briefly and in passing, and no specific

delivery issues were raised by Ministers. On 2 June, the Chairman and I met

with Ed Balls and Jim Knight on a range of matters, including the tests: as I

advised Lord Sutherland, I did indeed on that occasion reassure the Secretary

of State that earlier problems with marker recruitment, marker training and the

distribution of scripts had been overcome, and I did so on the basis of

evidence which I believed to be sound.

I was not asked to meet directly with the Schools Minister in the months

leading up to the delivery failure at the end of June, including the critical

marking period in the final eight weeks. Nor was I being 'pressed' by Ministers

for answers on the telephone or by email. There was a flurry of meetings once

the delivery failure occurred (2, 3, 24 July and 6, 14 August), but these

meetings were about recovering from the failure process, conducting the

review of scripts returned by schools because of problems with marking,

concluding the contract with ETS and tendering for a new supplier for 2009.

They were not about the causes of the delivery failure and the events leading

up to it, which were the matters on which Jim Knight was asked to give

evidence, and on which Lord Sutherland reported.

During the test delivery period, QCA was of course closely monitoring the

blogs and the many reports in the media about problems with ETS, and

working around the clock to resolve every issue which arose. We were in

close contact with DCSF officials, who were also monitoring the situation.

Many of the problems were successfully addressed by ETS, but some quite

major ones could not be resolved. Many allegations proved to be false, such

as the assertion that ETS was employing a first year undergraduate to mark

key stage 2 papers: he had in fact been employed by a school to assist in the

review of marked returned scripts.

The flawed evidence on which paragraphs 4.92, 4.93 and 4.137 of the

Sutherland Report is based has been used to portray me as complacent,

disengaged, and constantly beleaguered by Ministers with questions I was

unable to answer. This is far from the truth; it was not corrected by Ministers

or DCSF officials at draft report stage; and it has been used by Ministers to

my serious disadvantage.

All this had no bearing on my decision to resign. Clearly however, the record

should not be allowed to stand. The Secretary of State and the Schools

Minister owe an explanation to Lord Sutherland, to the House of Commons, to

the Select Committee, and to me. And the explanation cannot be that Jim

Knight was simply mistaken about the date on which he thought he met with

David Gee and me, because there was no other meeting with which it could

reasonably have been confused; nor that there were occasions other than 2

June when I was pressed by Ministers for answers, because that is simply not

true.”

Excerpts from the Sutherland Inquiry:

4.92 The Minister described how he actively questioned QCA in this way in June 2008:

“By mid-June, I wanted to have meetings with QCA to specifically discuss the National

Curriculum tests. I was asking for more updates on how things were going, and

receiving those. They were consistently saying that the 8 July deadline would be met,

but they were reporting various problems such as around marker recruitment, marker

satisfaction with how things were going, and the late delivery of scripts for marking

in the crucial half term in May, which many markers relied on to do their work. So, I

wanted a meeting to be able to ask some questions about how effectively the loss of

that time and the loss of that capacity would be made up for. We had that meeting on

the 17 June with Ken [Boston] and David Gee. I may well have met David Gee before

that point but it was the first time I had had a substantial discussion with him about

things in great detail. He basically answered all the questions; Ken [Boston] referred

everything to him. We went through everything with David [Gee]. He gave me some

reassurance about the measures that were being taken to mitigate the loss of time and

capacity, in particular the recruitment of marker panels, which seemed a reasonable

way of dealing with the problem to me.”141

4.93 DCSF’s notes of the meeting between Jim Knight, Dr Ken Boston, and David Gee on 17 June 2008 support the Minister’s impression that NAA was confident that results would be delivered on 8 July and that contingencies were in place, for example marker panels, to fast track marking where necessary.142

4.137 In practice what happened in 2008 was that DCSF observers escalated their own assessment of risks to the DCSF ministers on a number of occasions. On this basis, ministers usually pressed QCA’s Chief Executive for answers. At this point, because information was not being escalated within QCA effectively, ministers were given strong reassurances, by QCA that all was on track. As late as 17 June when the Schools Minister met QCA’s Chief Executive and NAA’s Managing Director, they provided reassurances.