205
In 1986 the GCSE Groups did take the step of consolidating the Joint Council for the
GCSE, initially created to ensure a common approach to the new examination, as a
forum where they could meet to formulate a common response to central proposals.
However they did not find the threat of central control to be sufficiently serious to
overcome their habitual mutual suspicion and use the Council as a platform for
resisting further centralisation. As centralisation accelerated during the 1990s there
was still no resistance - a curious passivity, but a function perhaps both of long habit
and the distraction of other changes they were undergoing.
In 1992, the Boards received an early warning of potential change when John Patten,
as Secretary of State, having received a report criticising the Boards "for allegedly
allowing an erosion of standards in the GCSE examination”, pointed out that
''although he did not control the boards, he had ‘quite serious powers ’ that could be
employed if he was not satisfied” (Quoted in McCulloch 1994: 132). In October 1992,
Patten reiterated his implied threat of the Government taking control. In his speech at
the Conservative Party annual conference, he said: ‘7 have a message for those exam
boards. Listen very carefully. Iwill say this only once. Get your act together” (Quoted
in McCulloch 1994: 133).
Patten was soon replaced, but in 1993 the merging of SEAC and NCC into the
Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) consolidated rather than
increased regulatory control by clearly linking assessment to the curriculum - which
of course was centrally designed. It was still the case that the regulatory focus was
concentrated on examinations at 16. However SCAA was, together with NCVQ, its
vocational opposite number, gradually widening its areas of interest. Clear evidence
of the intensifying central control that was being brought to bear on the examining