The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

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regulatory powers had effectively encroached upon their ability to exercise their
professional judgement. It had been the established quality of their assessment
expertise that had underwritten the reliability of the qualifications they offered. With
their ability to exercise that professional skill severely inhibited by central regulation,
it will be contended, the examining boards are in danger of becoming little more than
outsourcing agencies providing qualifications entirely designed and controlled by a
central, government-appointed body.

As evidence for this position, the chapter will interweave data from the interviews I
have conducted with my analysis of other sources in order to triangulate the evidence
produced to support my contention that the Boards were experiencing a significant
loss of independence. It will open with a summary of the continuing critiques of post-
16 qualifications - both vocational and A level - which led to the two major
qualification reforms of the 1990s: firstly the creation of General Vocational
Qualifications and then Curriculum 2000 which changed the structure of the A levels
which had lasted for half a century.

Then, after a brief consideration of the series of policy papers which reshaped the
world of the examining boards and will be referred to throughout this section, the
analysis will focus on some of the general themes that formed the context for all
English organisations during the 1990s and how their influence impacted specifically
on the Boards, with each factor contributing to the shift to central control. I will argue
that the dynamic interaction of these factors led to a step change in the relationship
between the Boards and their regulator and changed the balance of power irrevocably.

Clearly, the examining boards were not alone in experiencing many of the decade’s
stresses: they formed the context within which all English organisations had to

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