Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the oral question asked by the hon. Member for Chesterfield on 24 October 2022, when the Minister first become aware of the number of Level 3 BTEC students who were not going to get their results on 18 August 2022; and for what reason the number of students affected was not made public at the earliest opportunity.

The department was notified on 18 August 2022 that some students had not received their level 3 BTEC results as they had expected to on A level results day, due to issues with finalising grades. Ministers were informed of this on the same day.

The department immediately contacted Ofqual. As the regulator, Ofqual are responsible for ensuring that awarding organisations deliver qualifications in line with their regulations. Ofqual is currently undertaking a review of the process with awarding organisations and centres to ensure that lessons are learnt from this year’s results. Recommendations will be published later in the autumn.

The awarding organisations held data on the number of students affected, and published updates on their own websites regularly.