Williamson “blaming Ofqual”. Yet it has performed the role it was set up to do-by ministers

Sanctuary Buildings, home of the Department for Education. Surely, the buck has to stop here (or with the Prime Minister), rather than with officials.

Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, is reportedly “seeking to blame Ofqual for exams debacle”, as he performed a humiliating u-turn over the grading of A-levels and GCSEs.

This means, of course, that students’ teacher assessment grades will now be accepted if they are higher than those which would have been awarded by a controversial algorithm overseen by the regulator, Ofqual.

Williamson was reported as having said that he had only become aware “over the Saturday and Sunday” of the scale of the problems with the Ofqual algorithm.

He was reported in the Guardian saying: “Over the weekend it became apparent to me, with evidence that Ofqual…and external experts had provided, that there were real concerns about what…[grades] a large number of students were getting… and whether or not that was a proper and fair reflection of their efforts.