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Figure 4-4 QCA Audit of OCR: Causes of problems in 1999
1 Staff within the Operations and Assessment Divisions were not sufficiently
trained to undertake some key roles. This deficit was at its most acute amongst
OCR staff in Cambridge and Birmingham responsible for the relocation of
scripts arriving from examiners. In particular, responsibilities were not
sufficiently clear and the level of supervision was inadequate to identify where
procedures were not being implemented.
2 Some examination centres did not send in entry data on time or did not follow
instructions correctly. This produced delays in processing entry data which had a
deleterious effect on subsequent examinations processes.
3 The centralised computer system provided by UCLES Corporate Services, the
Examinations Processing System (EPS), was prone to errors, slow at peak times
and generally difficult for staff to use. The EPS itself produced errors and delays
in many parts of the examination process.
OCR has been required to develop an action plan with key milestones the first of which is
in December 2000 to address the issues identified in this report which arise from the 2000
examinations. OCR must keep QCA apprised of progress on a regular basis. A QCA team
will analyse the progress reports, carry out its own checks and intervene where necessary.
(QCA 2000:21)
QCA’s statutory powers, to outsiders a minor technical adjustment, naturally loomed
very large in the Boards’ view of their relationship with QCA. It meant that where the
Boards disagreed with QCA over an issue, they had no option except resort to judicial
review - a slow and high-level procedure. This rise in the regulator’s status is
evidence of another shift in the balance of power. It remained largely symbolic until
real disagreements surfaced over the design of Curriculum 2000.
From the standpoint of a QCA official, while the significance of the change was
played down, there was no ambiguity over what QCA expected by way of control:
Accreditation [to] the national qualifications framework...was conceived not so
much as a regulatory instrument as a user aid, and part of Dearing’s
philosophy of trying to raise the status of the vocational by talking about a
common framework.... But actually the framework was the basis for regulation,
because you wouldn ,t accredit things into the framework without using some of
the parameters of the framework as the basis of accreditation. I suppose you
could say that’s part of the regulatory system. And more formal monitoring,
scrutiny and ultimately...public reporting of the outcomes of those scrutinies.
We still do scrutiny reports with recommendations, but it ,s slightly euphemistic,