The SQA, Scotland’s beleaguered exam body, has been accused of hiring “an army of spin doctors at the expense of education” following revelations that it has a 43-strong communications department.
A freedom of information (FOI) request shows that, in total, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) employs 998 staff and that 43 of them work in communications, making it one of the body’s largest departments - out of the 37 “directorates” listed, it is the seventh largest.
Scottish Labour, which made the FOI request, said that this “mammoth team” outstrips the staff in every academic subject area at the SQA, and is more than double the size of the science, mathematics and core skills team of just 16.
Labour’s education spokesperson Michael Marra called on the Scottish government to “get their priorities right and make sure our new exams body is focused on students rather than spin”.
The Scottish government has committed to replacing the SQA. In March, Professor Ken Muir recommended that the SQA should have its regulation and accreditation function removed and that a new agency be established, responsible for “the design and delivery of qualifications, the operation and certification of examinations and the awarding of certificates”.
In his report on the reform of SQA and Education Scotland, Professor Muir provisionally called the new body Qualifications Scotland and said that there should be more involvement of teachers and learners.
Mr Marra said: “As schools desperately try to recover from the devastation of the pandemic, the SQA’s management and the SNP seem to be more concerned with paper-shuffling and optics.
“They have hired an army of spin doctors at the expense of education, while delivering one exam shambles after another.
“This adds insult to injury at a time when [additional support needs] teacher numbers have tumbled and Scotland’s shameful attainment gap has grown.”
Mr Marra said that the “SQA’s hardworking staff” were “being failed by incompetent management and poor direction” at government level, adding: “The SNP must get their priorities right and make sure our new exams body is focused on students rather than spin.”
In a rapid review of the 2020 qualifications debacle, Professor Mark Priestley found that communication with teachers and learners and their families was “a constant source of criticism”.
One of his key recommendations was that “a clear communications strategy” should be developed for 2021 to ensure arrangements “are as fully as possible understood by all parties”.
However, the SQA has continued to come under fire over its clarity of communication. In March, it accidentally published extra support materials for this year’s exams earlier than planned.
In the wake of the incident, the SQA said “this should not have happened” and that the mistake meant the support materials had not been “communicated and shared in a way that learners and teachers have a right to expect”.
Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee on 23 March, following the publication of his report, Professor Muir said that SQA communications “are improving to a degree, although not entirely, as we have seen from some of the recent press and media coverage”.
The SQA spokesperson said: “The independent review of national qualifications in 2020 by Professor Mark Priestley recommended steps be taken to strengthen SQA’s communications. SQA recognises the need to ensure we listen to and engage with our many and diverse audiences - in Scotland, the rest of the UK and across the world - and that their voices inform all we do.”
The SQA also pointed out that its directorates include: a qualifications development directorate with 287 staff; an operations directorate with 190 staff; a business development directorate with 122 staff; and a communications directorate with 43 staff.
