The former chief executive of exam board OCR is one of four new appointments on the Ofqual board, the Department for Education has announced.

Another newcomer is Conor Ryan – who currently also serves on the board of Oak National Academy alongside Ofqual’s chief executive Sir Ian Bauckham.

Duffy stood down from OCR earlier this year after seven years at the helm. Her declared interests show she is also governor of Oxford Brookes University.

Ofqual regulates exam boards. In 2018, it fined OCR twice over failures. The exam board had to pay out £175,000 after an incorrect question about Romeo and Juliet on a GCSE English literature paper that affected nearly 3,000 pupils.

OCR also shelled out another £125,000 after partial answers to GCSE computing exam questions were found in textbooks it had endorsed.

Ryan will join Hardip Begol to become the second Ofqual board member from Oak, which provides online curriculum resources for teachers. Bauckham is also chair of Oak.

Begol, also a trustee of the Education Policy Institute, was reappointed in July.

Ryan is also a member of the Labour party and was a special adviser to the Tony Blair’s Labour government. 

The other two new appointments are Kurt Hintz, interim principal and CEO of Petroc College, and Andrea Rigamonti, the former CFO at Videndum PLC.

They will both serve from October, while Ryan will serve from November and Duffy from January.

The appointments last for three years and board members will be paid £9,000 per annum for around 20 days work.

Six existing Ofqual board members were also reappointed earlier this year. 

These include Chris Paterson, acting co-CEO of Education Endowment Trust and director of Ormiston Academies Trust, and Cindy Leslie, who holds various trustee positions. Both were reappointed from July for three years.