Source · SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)

Scottish Qualifications Authority

SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) Not Upheld Reference 201404550 Sector Scottish Government and Devolved Administration Category complaints handling Decided 01 March 2016

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Full decision

Summary

Mr C's daughter appealed to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) about her results in two subjects. Her appeals were not upheld. Mr C complained on behalf of his daughter to the SQA about the procedures they had followed and that they had not examined apparent administrative errors in the recording of her marks. The SQA investigated and responded to additional points of clarification that Mr C asked for, but he did not think their responses were clear or addressed his concerns. He also asked about the papers for one of her subjects which appeared to be missing. The SQA admitted they were unable to trace the documents and outlined the steps they would take to ensure there would be no recurrence.

From our investigation, we were satisfied that the SQA provided reasonable responses to Mr C's representations. The responses included explaining their quality assurance processes, confirming that the original marking of the examinations had been to the national standard, confirming that following the appeal they were satisfied the marks awarded were correct and that there had been no mistakes in the marking of the examinations. They had also responded to Mr C's concerns about the loss of documents and had explained the action taken to improve their processes.

Related reading

View Decision Report 201404550 as a PDF (11.19 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

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