LONDON — Ofqual, the non-government department that regulates qualifications, examinations and assessments in England, is seeking press office and media strategy support, following the A-level and GSCE results debacle this summer.

The exams watchdog issued a short-notice tender on its procurement website on August 25, with a deadline for submissions of September 1, just one week later (including a UK bank holiday weekend.)

The tender documents stated: “We are looking for a senior press office service to provide media advice and strategy to the chief regulator and the board in a fast-paced and demanding environment.”

It goes on to state that the successful tenderer will be expected to deliver a “demand-responsive and resilient service on a full-time basis which will include weekends” and “to develop and lead media campaigns and to implement Ofqual’s recovery plan.”

A decision on the winning tenderer was due to be made on Friday 4 September, with the winning agency to start work this week, based at Ofqual’s headquarters in Coventry until Christmas. The maximum budget for the 16-week project is £80,000, with points awarded under the assessment criteria for firms whose bids are under that threshold.

The new team will have a high-profile communications challenge on their hands. Ofqual and education secretary Gavin Williamson were forced to apologise last month after a flawed algorithm downgraded almost 40% of predicted results from teachers’ assessments, made since students could not sit the exams due to schools being in lockdown.

This resulted in many students losing university places, with students from state schools disproportionately affected. The government later announced that all grades would revert to teachers’ predictions, and Ofqual’s chief executive, Sally Collier, resigned last month.

The contract period for the new media relations support brief will include the A-Level and GSCE re-sits in October and November.

The specification for the contract states that the “deliverables in achieving the successful delivery of requirements” are senior press office, media advice and strategy delivery, including “full time senior press office leadership including leading and responding to media enquiries and allocation and support of tasks to other teams; weekend on-call and on demand-responsive service to develop responses to the media for agreement by the chief regulator; supporting the chief executive and the board on strategy development/delivery and media responses as required; delivery leadership of media and campaigns; and delivery of the recovery plan, currently under development.”

Ofqual’s press office had not responded to a request for comment as this story went live.