Chris Pratt (Letters, 30 April) commends the critical evaluation of proposals for baseline testing of four-year-olds that we carried out for the British Educational Research Association. As a result of a freedom of information request, the Department for Education and the National Foundation for Educational Research have now released results of the trial of their baseline assessment.
Unfortunately, some two-thirds of these results have been redacted, so we have little way of knowing what was found. Indeed, the “conclusions” in the NFER report are completely redacted. The DfE has also withheld (claiming, we believe erroneously, that the 2018 Data Protection Act allows it to do so) the names of the eight “experts” who were recruited to advise on the trial – on the grounds that this would be “unfair”.
The DfE says: “We are withholding the full analysis of the trialling data, practitioner feedback and timing data under section 35(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000), as it is information relating to the development of government policy … Therefore, releasing this information puts the policy at risk.”
Is this what is known as “open government”?
Prof Harvey Goldstein University of Bristol, Prof Gemma Moss University College London, Prof Gordon Stobart University College London, Prof Pamela Sammons University of Oxford, Gwen Sinnot Independent consultant
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