In late March 2020, Gavin Williamson, the secretary of state for education in Boris Johnson's Conservative government, instructed the head of Ofqual, Sally Collier, to "ensure, as far as is possible, that qualification standards are maintained and the distribution of grades follows a similar profile to that in previous years".
[2] On 25 August, Collier, who oversaw the development of Williamson's algorithm calculation, resigned from the post of chief regulator of Ofqual following mounting pressure.
[5] Nevertheless, because of the high level of grade inflation resulting from Ofqual's decision not to apply the algorithm to A levels and GCSEs, Pearson Edexcel, the BTEC examiner, decided to cancel the release of BTEC results on 19 August, the day before they were due to be released, to allow them to be re-moderated in line with Ofqual's grade inflation.
[7] Students found the system unfair, and pressure was applied on Williamson to explain the results and to reverse his decision to use the algorithm that he had commissioned and Ofqual had implemented.
After the Ofqual decision to use unmoderated teacher predictions, many affected students had grades to meet their offer, and reapplied.
[17] Lord Falconer, a former attorney general, opined that three laws had been broken, and gave an example of where Ofqual had ignored a direct instruction of the Secretary of State for Education.
[18] Falconer said the formula for standardising grades was in breach of the overarching objectives under which Ofqual was established by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.
[2][18] The Labour Party suggested that the process was unlawful in that the students were given no appeal mechanism,[18][2] stating: "There will be a mass of discriminatory impacts by operating the process on the basis of reflecting the previous years' results from their institutions", and "It is bound to disadvantage a whole range of groups with protected characteristics, in breach of a range of anti-discrimination legislation.