SQA and Swinney accused of ‘cover-up’ over record of meetings
John Swinney and the SQA have been accused of“trying to cover up their in competence” over the exam results fiasco and criticised for failing to get their stories straight by opposition politicians.
Both the chief executive of the SQ A, Fi on a Robertson, and the Education Secretary came under fierce pressure to quit after protests from students against the SQA’S moderation system led to a significant U-turn from Mr Swinney.
The exam results fiasco also saw Mr S win ney narrowly win a no confidence vote in Holyrood after an agreement was struck with the Scottish Greens for students to receive unmoderated teacher es timates for their grades.
The fresh accusations of a “cover up” come as it emerged SQA officials claimed no agendas or minutes were circulated at eight separate meetings between Mr Swinney, Ms Robertson, and SQA and government officials.
Instead, the meetings which took place between March 11 and results day on August 4 were said to have had just one linked document; a briefing note for the Education Secretary detailing the outcome and methodology of the SQA’S much-criticised statistical moderation system.
The SQA’S official stance is contradicted by a separate Scottish Government disclosure which published an agenda circulated for one of the meetings between the deputy First Minister and the exams chief in June, alongside a document titled Top lines/discussion Points.
This discrepancy has fuelled claim sofa Scottish Government and SQA cover-up with Scottish Labour’ s educ ation spokesperson Iain Gray stating that the revelations showed an “unacceptable level of secrecy” and an “attempt to hide something”.
Highlighting findings in the Scottish Government commissioned review into the“alternative certification model” authored by Professor Mark Priestley, Mr Gray said
both the SQA and the Scottish Government were“still trying to cover up their in competence ”.
He said :“The Pre i st ley review of the SQA awards fiasco showed exactly how pupils from deprived communities were systematically marked down on the basis of the school they went to, while pupils from prosperous areas and private schools suffered far less.
"It also showed that John Swinney knew what was hap
p ening but tried to spin his way through, only carrying out his U-turn when pupils were protesting and he faced a confidence vote.
“He has always claimed that he did not engage or interfere with the development of the moderation by the SQA. Now we see that he was in regular contact with them throughout the critical months.
"Yet the SQA claim no minutes, notes or agendas were kept for these conversations in
spite of evidence to the contrary. This is an attempt to hide something. It is an unacceptable level of secrecy about how decisions were made which affected hundreds of thousands of pupil grades. The SQA and Mr Swinney are still trying to cover up their incompetence.
“This was a fiasco, and it should have cost the E ducation Secretary his job .”