Scottish exam chiefs are ordered to quit

The chairman and board of the troubled Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) were ordered to resign yesterday after a damning report revealed a catalogue of errors which led to the exams fiasco in summer.

The chairman and board of the troubled Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) were ordered to resign yesterday after a damning report revealed a catalogue of errors which led to the exams fiasco in summer.

Jack McConnell, the Scottish education minister, said the SQA chairman, David Miller, would be replaced by John Ward, a businessman, and demanded the resignations of the authority's 23 other members.

The consultants Deloitte and Touche had made wholesale criticisms of the planning, management, systems and controls set up to run Scottish exams.

Errors dogged efforts to introduce a wholesale reform of Scottish Highers in sixth forms and spilled over into Standard grade exams, the equivalent of the English GCSE.

There was chaos in the summer, with 16,748 candidates receiving incorrect or incomplete results. Thousands faced problems with university entrance, which led to students being accepted on predicted grades. The SQA is still processing thousands of exam appeals.

Yesterday, Mr McConnell ordered the SQA to produce an action plan within a fortnight. "I was frankly appalled by the scale of the organisation failure," he said, and the report showed a "stark picture of an organisation with significant management weaknesses".