[2024] UKUT 00142 (IAC)

Mr Shury accepted in his oral evidence before us that he has no expertise of working with computers and or system networks, and that when he joined ETS, he was having to train himself, looking at matters in real time, and then looking back and examining processes. The procedures adopted by ETS depended on the honesty of the staff at test centres. Mr Shury’s role involved conducting audits of test centres, mainly unannounced. He reported to Ahmad Bdour who was a Quality and Security Specialist for ETS Global, based in Amsterdam. Mr Shury was told by Mr Bdour that as part of the security process he had been conducting unannounced audits at UK test centres and had encountered problems. For example, he had seen “proxy test takers” (i.e. Direct substitution”) and other procedural violations which should not have been occurring. Mr Bdour had been keeping a log about certain test centres he had suspicions about. A list of centres that required an audit as a matter of priority was compiled. In December 2012 and January 2013 unannounced audits were conducted at six test centres. They included four in London, one in Manchester and one in Leicester. Mr Shury states he witnessed evidence of ‘remote testing’ and ‘proxy test takers’. Mr Shury states audit reports were sent to a number of individuals at ETS including Ahmad Bdour, but in October 2013 he was informed that instructions were given for the audit reports to be sent to two individuals only, Ahmad Bdour and Tom Parker. He was told in November 2013 that:

“..management were sick of hearing about [him] telling them to close centres and [he] was not to bring it up anymore”.

Mr Shury states there were a number of test centres, based on audit results and information received from independent TCA’s that had been sent into test centres, that should have been closed. Issues such as identity checks not being completed properly and rooms not being set out correctly had been identified. He would have liked to see stronger action taken against a lot of the test centres, but his recommendation that test centres be closed was overruled, and so other measures were introduced to increase security and compliance, such as the requirement for an independent TCA to run the test session and the use of ‘sealed security bags’ to prevent tampering with test materials. Those measures remained in place until 19 November 2013 when there was an instruction to stop conducting audits and to stop the use of independent TCA’s.

During 2013, Mr Shury states Ahmed Bdour and he conducted around 30 security audits. In terms of the deceptions used they were told of: employees giving students the answers, exam sheets filled out by centre employees, the use of proxy test takers and remote testing. Mr Shury states that he does not think that ETS (i.e. the parent company) was aware of the extent of the problems that were occurring at test centres in the UK.