New Sats results delay as MPs grill exam chief

Tens of thousands of families face a stressful wait for school test results today as further details of the chaos that engulfed this year's Sats marking emerge.

Up to 30,000 primary pupils will not receive grades as promised for their tests today - already one week late - and the exams watchdog has begun an inquiry into what went wrong. The contractor running the tests, ETS Europe, faces "tens of millions" of pounds in fines, according to Ken Boston, who runs the government agency responsible for Sats.

In evidence to the Commons schools select committee, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority chief outlined problems behind the delays, including:

Extra staff had to be sent in to help ETS Europe clear a backlog of 10,000 unanswered email queries about the tests.

The Sats helpline was understaffed and needed reinforcements to cope with the volume of calls.

Markers did not receive papers on time.

Exam scripts were returned to schools without having been marked at all.

Marking was slow and there were problems recruiting and retaining markers.

Dr Boston is himself under pressure and was asked to send his contract of employment to the select committee.

But he suggested that while the QCA may be partly to blame, "ETS may also have made some very significant mistakes".

He added: "It failed to meet the deadline it was committed to meet contractually and was paid to meet."

He said there were "very significant penalty clauses" written into the £150million contract with ETS Europe.

"There are serious options, one of which is termination for failure to deliver and that has very significant financial consequences," he said.

Dr Boston emphasised that "we are not at that point" but gave a warning that the firm faced costs resulting from the fiasco that could run to "tens of millions" of pounds.

Ten days ago, exam chiefs delayed publishing results amid marking problems but promised schools would have them by today. Thousands of results for 14-year-olds are also set to be delayed.

Officials are braced for complaints from schools after heads expressed concern about the quality of marking.