How Swinney desperately tried to ‘spin’ exams f iasco
DEPUTY First Minister John Swinney has been accused of putting his political career ahead of children’s futures as new documents reveal he tried to ‘spin’ his way out of the exams crisis.
Internal emails have laid bare his desperate attempts to smooth over last month’s results scandal.
As the exams fiasco sparked a furious backlash, the Education Secretary – rather than simply apologise immediately – instructed staff to find a way to dismiss the concerns of pupils and teachers.
One message from Mr Swinney’s office two days after the grades were made public shows how officials were asked to do ‘lots of digging’ to prove that ‘young people from deprived backgrounds have not been disadvantaged’.
Emails sent over a four-day period show public servants worked to find new statistics and explanations to prove the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) moderation system was not flawed. However, the next week Mr Swinney was forced to change grades back to teachers’ estimates and apologise to those affected.
Scots Tory education spokesman Jamie Greene said: ‘These revelations confirm what many people suspected – John Swinney only changed his mind when his job was on the line. He knew why the system had failed many disadvantaged pupils yet was more interested in saving his career.’
Mr Swinney faced a wave of anger after more than 120,000 pupils had results downgraded by the SQA because of the past performance of their school. But a dossier of correspondence obtained by this newspaper shows that the Minister continued to try to justify the measures.
Amid a stack of emails obtained under freedom of information laws, one from his office on the morning of August 6 read: ‘The DFM [Deputy First Minister] has asked that we do lots of digging in the stats to show how young people from deprived backgrounds have not been disadvantaged by the results.
‘Can you also please provide a clear distillation of the methodology of moderation?’
A later communications email confirmed that anger was continuing to mount.
A message sent at 5.20pm that evening relayed that Scottish Labour had launched a petition calling for a review into the exams results process, the SNP candidate Chris McEleny had called for teachers’ estimates to be upheld, the former SQA vice-chairman Sir Iain McMillan had demanded a probe into the scandal, and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie had called for Audit Scotland to investigate.
The following day it seems civil servants went into overdrive to help save Mr Swinney.
On August 7, email exchanges show Government officials trying to find a way to frame the results in a more appealing way.
One suggested that they tell the public that the SQA moderation did not affect whole schools, but differed across subjects within each school.
Both Mr Swinney and the First Minister resolutely defended their approach and insisted any unfairness would be dealt with by the appeals system.
Notably, documents show that on August 10, his office sent out a draft apology letter for approval, designed to be a stock response to pupils who had written directly to Mr Swinney.
However, on August 11, Mr Swinney made a U-turn and announced results would revert to teachers’ gradings without the need for pupils to appeal.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: ‘Once it became clear that the downgraded awards risked young people, particularly from working-class backgrounds, losing faith in education, the Deputy First Minister instructed all downgraded awards to be withdrawn and new awards issued based on teacher or lecturer judgment.’
‘Only changed his mind when job was on line’ ‘He has asked we do lots of digging in stats’