New Sats fiasco looms over delay in finding firm to mark papers

SCHOOLS are facing another Sats fiasco as government exam chiefs struggle to find a company to run next year's tests.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) hoped to have a new firm signed up to deliver the 2009 Sats by November.

But with less than five months left before 600,000 pupils take their tests in English, maths and science, a contractor has still not been appointed.

It comes a day after the QCA's chief exeuctive Ken Boston quit over the failure to deliver Sats results on time this year. His resignation came amid revelations over his £328,000-a-year salary - a deal that also included a £50,000-a-year rent allowance, business class tickets for him and his family to travel back to Australia and an option on a yacht club membership. Mr Boston apologised to schools and pupils at the weekend and said public officials should "take responsibility when things go wrong".

Tens of thousands of pupils were forced to wait months for their grades this year after a string of blunders hit the marking process. ETS Europe, the firm which ran the tests, had its £156 million five-year contract terminated in August.

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said he was concerned that a new contractor had not yet been appointed for next year's primary school Sats.

"The longer this goes on the more certainty there will be that we are going to have yet another fiasco," he said. "The disaster of the Sats results earlier this year was an accident waiting to happen. We cannot afford a repeat."

Mr Brookes said the 2009 tests must be the last. Schools are prepared to consider boycotting the assessments if ministers refuse to reform the system.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls has said the current testing regime is "not set in stone" and a pilot scheme is underway in 370 schools. This could see Sats for all pupils at the fixed age of 11 replaced with a new system in which children take tests when they are ready. Mr Balls has already abolished compulsory secondary school Sats for 14-year-olds in the wake of the marking crisis.

Thousands of schools have sent papers back to be re-marked after receiving grades they believed were incorrect.

An official inquiry into what went wrong, led by former Chief Inspector of Schools Lord Sutherland, is to be published tomorrow.

He is expected to be critical of the role the QCA and its testing arm, the National Assessment Agency (NAA), played. The QCA has overall responsibility for ensuring smooth running of Sats. David Gee, managing director of the NAA, could also come under pressure when Lord Sutherland publishes his report. Mr Gee took over after his predecessor Jonathan Ford quit over a similar Sats marking failure in 2004.

A spokesman for the QCA said he believed it was still possible to deliver next year's Sats successfully.