The government waived £1.5 million of a financial penalty for outsourcing giant Capita following last year’s SATs fiasco, Schools Week can reveal.
Ministers were contractually entitled to slash the fee paid to the company by £2.8 million in the wake of a helpline meltdown and the disappearance of more than 2,000 exam scripts during last year’s key stage 2 tests.
But the latest accounts for the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) reveal officials decided to shave off over half of that sum in a bid to “de-risk delivery for future test cycles”, reducing the amount to just £1.3 million.
In exchange for the waiver “the supplier has agreed to undertake additional actions aimed at improving performance levels, including significant investment in additional resource”.
