A Department for Education-nominated Ofqual adviser on this year’s GCSEs and A levels has warned that the plans “risk an outcome...much worse than last year”.

Sir Jon Coles, a former director-general at the DfE, wrote on Twitter: “The government is getting itself in a terrible tangle about assessment and qualifications.

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“In truth, it always spells trouble in making policy when you’re as focused on what can’t or mustn’t be a solution as on the goal you’re trying to achieve.

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“In this case, the government is desperate not to be accused of having ‘an algorithm’ or of ‘exams by the back door’. Focusing on this, rather than the actual goal - how we are going to be fair to young people - risks an outcome in August much worse than last year’s,” he said.

In this case, the government is desperate not to be accused of having ‘an algorithm’ or of ‘exams by the back door’. Focusing on this, rather than the actual goal - how we are going to be fair to young people - risks an outcome in August much worse than last year’s.

- Jon Coles (@JonColes01) January 31, 2021

Sir Jon added that if “no algorithm” is taken to mean no use of past data, and “no exams by the back door” means “no common assessment taken under standard conditions, then we really are lost”.

He had been a DfE-nominated member of Ofqual’s now wound-up “recovery committee”, which was looking at how to run this year’s GCSEs and A levels.

Today it was reported that Sir Jon had resigned. Responding to the story, schools minister Nick Gibb told Sky News: “[Sir Jon] thought that the exams material that we’re making available to teachers, the question banks that they can use as part of the range of evidence they will need to supply to exam boards about how they’ve devised the grades, he wanted that to be compulsory, mandatory.

“We asked that question in the consultation … and the consultation was very clear they should be an option and not mandatory.

“We didn’t want those materials to be regarded as a mini-exam because we have cancelled exams this year because they were felt to be unfair, given the disruption.”

Mr Gibb, speaking to LBC, added: “We didn’t want there to be an exam by the backdoor if it was mandatory - that was the fear.”