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individuals who had not been inhibited by the usual long service of most of those
working in the examining world. A new Chief Executive had moved to the London
Board - after a career as a secondary head teacher, then a local authority
administrator. As the 1990s opened, he was considering retirement and was motivated
by a desire to avoid being responsible for the demise of the University of London
Examining and Assessment Consortium (ULEAC), as the London GCE Board and its
GCSE arm the London and East Anglia Group (LEAG) were now known, because of
its dire financial circumstances. By happy chance, BTEC’s new ChiefExecutive was
simultaneously looking for a means of expanding into the schools sector:
[The London CEO] really initiated discussions, as he realised London was the
smallest board after GCSE, and was looking for a partner. The two of us had
some initial talks, and then...it was more to do with who bought who. So we
bought them out, in effect. And buying out was not a sum of money, but an
agreement to continue to rent the building, to be supportive, but to make sure
there was enough blue water between ourselves and the University.
(Edexcel3 2004)
The other Boards were perhaps slow to recognise the significance of the creation of
the new body Edexcel, described in significantly commercial terms as a ‘one-stop
shop’ where schools could find either academic or vocational qualifications. When the
new body was announced at their annual Joint Council Conference in Norwich in
September 1995, the general view of the other Boards was that it was a predictable
move given the desperation of the London Board and the ambition of BTEC. They did
not at that point see it as a form Ofhandwriting on the wall for themselves.
The new organisation “needed to make a profit because we needed to invest"
(Edexcell 2000) - not least because their building in Russell Square needed major
upgrading after years of under-investment by the University of London.
London University did not run London Exams with its own finance director or
its own HR director, and it used the University of London backup facilities....
We picked up London Exams, which had not been invested in for many years,