Ed Balls the Schools Secretary refused to apologise today for the testing fiasco that has delayed the return of millions of children’s exam papers.

It was also claimed that some teenagers have been employed to mark the test papers of pupils aged 11 and 14.

Mr Balls was grilled by a committee of MPs about the handling of the key stage tests by ETS, an American company appointed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority(QCA), which reports to his department.

He also faced criticism over the amount of assessment in schools, and was accused of refusing to acknowledge that the current regime results in excessive teaching to the test.

Most of the Key Stage 2 and 3 test papers are being returned to schools this week - a week late - however about a fifth of the higher level scripts further delays.

Mr Balls told the Commons’ Children, Schools and Families Committee that the delays had caused inconvenience and were unacceptable.

But when challenged about whether he would take full responsiblity or apologise, Mr Balls declined to give a direct answer.

Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Harwich, asked: “As minister, do you take responsibility [for what happened]?”

Mr Balls said he was responsible for making sure testing happened, which he did “in an arm’s length way through the QCA.”

He added: “It is ETS’s responsibility to deliver the contract. It is QCA’s responsibility to ensure the contract is being delivered.

“The reason I’ve asked for Lord Sutherland’s independent inquiry is because I want to know whether the QCA has managed this responsiblity, so I can then report to parliament. That’s my responsiblity.”

Mr Carswell said: “So the minister for schools doesn’t take responsiblity - he blames others and gets Lord Sutherland to kick it into touch for the autumn. The quango chief won’t accept he’s to blame and passes the buck to ETS. As minister of Whitehall are you sure you’re really in control of what’s happening?

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