197
awarding bodies, one might assume that the policy anticipated that the three
vocational bodies would remain within the structure. However, one of those bodies
had a different agenda, in the opinion of an interviewee from another board. iiJVhat
was interesting was always the way City & Guilds kept themselves apart " (OCR2
2003).
City & Guilds, at that time led by a wily Director General - and iithe cast of
characters is very important” (OCR2 2003) - held early discussions about
cooperating with AEB. After all, the AEB had been an offspring of City & Guilds.
However these talks came to an abrupt halt when it became clear that the City &
Guilds’ objective was a straightforward takeover of the academic board. (Sturgis
2000: 40) Instead the discussions widened to become three-way negotiations
including NEAB - with whom, it transpired, City & Guilds had also been exploring
options. The resulting creation of AQA as a Joint Venture entered into by AEB,
NEAB and City & Guilds was announced with much fanfare by the New Labour
Junior Education Minister, Lady Blackstone, on 6 November 1997. Negotiations
continued over the detail of the new structure, with the City & Guilds representatives
becoming increasingly impatient with the slow pace of progress; they appeared to be
advocating a full merger as soon as possible. Then in February 1998, they electrified
the other two members of the Joint Venture: they offered to sell City & Guilds’ GCSE
provision to AQA for £5 millions. This unusual method of leaving a legally created
Joint Venture had the immediate effect of forcing AEB and NEAB to negotiate a
more realistic price for the GNVQ provision they both needed to remain accredited
awarding bodies. The two Boards eventually merged fully on 1 April 2000.
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