Grade F for forethought

There was a proper botch over the GCSE result tables published earlier this week.

Normally the tables are released to the media a few days early so they can sort through the reams of stats.

It means hacks can work out what the figures mean and get stories prepared for publication on the tables' official release date.

But last year new statistics laws were passed which meant no figures could be released to the media more than 24 hours in advance of their official release date.

Ed Balls has now admitted that no-one in DCSF thought about what that might mean for exam tables until after New Year, when it was too late to do anything about it.

The tables were put out to media just one day early, so hardly any newspapers carried detailed breakdowns on the date of official release.

Here’s the best bit – to sort it out Labour is actually going to have to pass a new piece of legislation specifically to allow the early release of exam tables.

That will obviously cost extra time and money and all because it wasn’t thought through in the first place