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

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that this could mean altering deeply ingrained habits. Yet there could be no
allowances made for all this when it came to producing examination papers,
processing entries, recording marks and turning out results on time. Even when the
new staffing structure had finally been put in place by the spring of 2002, there were
still considerable difficulties in forging a single approach. As mentioned above,
serious delays occurred in producing results in August 2002 which a subsequent
investigation attributed to staff failure to adapt to new uniform practices. It took
another year for these to become properly embedded. The then Director General
observed in a message to me in August 2003, following the end of my term as a
trustee, ⁱⁱYou will be glad to know that so far everything has gone really well this year
- much better than 2002, a clear indication that merger had a real effect last year”
(Tattersall 2003).

A staffing matter related to the merger dashed AQA trustees’ expectations that
eliminating the duplication inherent in two separate Boards would reduce costs. In
Bcreating the staffing structure for the new organisation, the directors had analysed
the staffing requirements of the five divisions of AQA and found that if they were to
be able to guarantee the required level of performance as qualifications changed and
demands for data increased, they had to increase staffing levels. This outcome - what
was clearly an internal issue resulting from external pressures - meant financial
reserves had to be tapped more deeply than anticipated. The financial effect on the
new organisation will be considered below.

Adapting to a new qualification structure

Not only did staff have to adapt to changes in practice in a new organisation.
Simultaneously they had to take on a completely new style of qualification and

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