£125,000 SQA boss and career bureaucrat at eye of the storm

HER arrival as £125,000-a-year chief executive of Scotland’s beleaguered exams body last year was hailed as a welcome boost by John Swinney.

After nearly two decades in the strategic arm of the Scottish Government – mostly in the higher echelons – Fiona Robertson, the Education Secretary announced, would bring a ‘broad range of experience and credibility to the role’.

A year on, however, his words have something of a hollow ring, with calls from hundreds of thousands of angry teachers, parents and pupils across the country for heads to roll, particularly Mr Swinney’s, following Scotland’s exams debacle.

The First Minister’s unguarded remark on Friday that she, too, as a teenager, would have felt ‘aggrieved’ if her marks had been downgraded, given the school she attended – Greenwood Academy in Dreghorn, Ayrshire – has a Higher pass rate below the national average, only added fuel to the fire.

Now, as Ms Robertson, 50, prepares to explain to a Holyrood committee on Wednesday how the SQA came up with the controversial pupil grading system, she must be lamenting her late switch of career from senior civil servant, where she enjoyed relative obscurity, to a role in the spotlight at the helm of one of the country’s most controversial quangos.

Her path and Mr Swinney’s had crossed many times before she took up the post at the SQA last year, having spent the previous six years as director of learning at Holyrood, where she earned around £100,000 a year and was regarded as a ‘strategic player’ in some of the SNP’s key initiatives. They included the development and delivery of Curriculum for Excellence and the National Improvement Framework, aimed at improving standards of education and closing the attainment gap in Scotland’s most deprived areas.

A graduate of both Glasgow and Strathclyde universities, she became an economist. Later joining the Scottish Government as an analyst, she spent much of her early career providing analysis on the performance of the Scottish economy.

Her skills and sharp intellect would later see her rising quickly up the ranks in the economic strategy directorate, which also reported to Mr Swinney, who was at that time in 2008, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth.

Her increasing capability and experience eventually saw her tasked with a number of central strategy roles, including a review of some of Scotland’s public bodies.

Until joining the SQA, it would appear Ms Robertson had rarely put a foot wrong.

But last week, as she took to social media to praise Scotland’s pupils on results day, the backlash was fierce.

Telling them in a smiling video message that they should feel ‘proud of their achievements’ and that they could now ‘progress with confidence to continued education’, replies to her post from irate students and parents ranged from ‘disgrace’ and ‘shambles’ to ‘absolute joke’.

Later, in a media briefing, Ms Robertson attempted to play down the criticism, saying that some teachers ‘may have been optimistic’ in the estimates they provided.

She added: ‘We moderated in order to ensure fairness across Scotland and maintain standards.’

It remains to be seen, later this week, if the SQA chief will be marked down – or have to step down.

‘We moderated in order to ensure fairness across Scotland’