Exam boards face fines for test paper errors
Exam boards face multi-million pound fines for mistakes in test papers under new powers granted to the exams watchdog Ofqual.
Just days before the exam season gets under way, the regulator has given details of new sanctions - including fines of up to 10% of annual turnover.
The regulator can also order exam papers to be rewritten or ban boards from offering certain qualifications.
Fiona Pethick of Ofqual promised to "act firmly and robustly".
The biggest exam boards have turnovers of up to £300m, so fines of 10% would be substantial.
The government says the money will go to the public purse.
Ms Pethick, Ofqual's director of regulation said: "We want awarding organisations to provide high-quality qualifications and good levels of service.
"Our additional powers, including the power to fine, mean that when things go wrong, we have more ways in which we can sanction an awarding organisation.
"With exams starting shortly, this is a timely announcement for us as we now have our new powers in place should there be any problems during this important period."
The move follows a series of unanswerable questions and printing errors in last summer's A-level and GCSE exam papers, sat by 140,000 students in England Wales and Northern Ireland.
After about a dozen mistakes were found in national test papers, the government promised to have new regulatory powers, including a system of fines, ready for this summer's exams.
Last summer's mistakes included multiple-choice questions where all the answers were wrong, and questions which were impossible to answer because wrong information had been given.
The subjects affected were geography, maths, chemistry, biology, business studies and Latin.
Pupils vented their anger on social networking sites, with some calling for the exams to be re-staged.
At the time the exam boards apologised for the mistakes and said they were taking measures to ensure pupils would not be advantaged or disadvantaged by them.