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

159

England and Wales” with “ever-increasing regulation and oversight of the whole
examining process” (Wolf 2002a: 216) By 2000 the Boards were organisations whose
independence was at the very least severely limited if not illusory.

Now, in order to analyse how various aspects of these policies impacted upon the
Boards, the strands that comprise the whole fabric have to be pulled apart and
considered individually. I have categorized one group of these aspects as external and
stemming from factors beyond the Boards’control and a second group as internal and
affecting the organisational operations. The four external pressures I have identified
are:

Marketisation

Unification

Regulation

Standards

The three ‘internal’ pressures are of course related to the external factors:

Staffing problems

Upgrading information systems

Financial pressures

I maintain that the interaction of these issues had a destabilising effect on the
performance of the Boards which, because of their gradual loss of professional
independence, they were powerless to counteract.

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