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other sectors and in other countries, such as the public provision of transport or
energy or financial services.
(Boston 2002: 12)
Leaving aside considerations as to his view of QCA as a regulator equivalent to the
Financial Services Authority, Ken Boston’s admission of the equivocal position QCA
occupies supports my case that it is difficult to separate out the responsibility for
policy decisions. Therefore I shall proceed on the basis that separating the strands of
power within that combination of forces is beyond the scope of this research. While
several interviewees have suggested that references to “the Minister" are probable
shorthand for civil servants’ influence, for the purposes of this analysis, QCA as the
regulator will be treated as the locus of power confronted by the awarding bodies.
When QCA was established in 1997, the booklet which introduced it - claiming a
‘Mission’ for coherence and ‘Values’ which are open - described its ‘Partners’ in
prose which conceals more than it reveals:
The Government, which is responsible for maintaining the skills base of the
nation. QCA is a non-departmental government body under the Department for
Education and Employment, and has close links with it.
Awarding bodies, which offer a wide range of qualifications including GCSEs,
GCEs, GNVQs and NVQs. They are responsible for syllabus development,
centre approval, standardisation of marking and quality assurance.
(ffCN 1997: 7)
The conundrum implied by the status of a non-departmental government body
“under” a named department did not disappear with time. While acknowledging the
fluid nature of these distinctions, I shall base my analysis on the working assumption
of a binary division which gradually shifted from a partnership in 1997 to one of
patron∕client as QCA gradually garnered to itself the most important of the
responsibilities it had initially perceived as resting with the awarding bodies. The
analysis of the significant change as Curriculum 2000 took shape will concentrate on
the movement in this power relationship. Therefore the emphasis will be on the