A civil servant has admitted urging Ken Boston, former head of the exams watchdog, to leave his post three months before a report into England’s SATS marking row.

David Bell, permanent secretary at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said that the SATS inquiry would quite obviously be too damning for Dr Boston.

Giving evidence to a committee of MPs, Mr Bell denied he was acting under pressure from government ministers.

Dr Boston’s later offer of resignation was denied and he was suspended in December.

The SATS tests marking failures last summer affected thousands of children, who did not receive their results on time. The problems also delayed publication of the primary school league tables.

MPs on the Commons' School Select Committee questioned Mr Bell as to why Dr Boston was suspended by the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency board, since he had already offered his resignation over the marking delays.

Chairman of the Committee, Barry Sheerman suggested Dr Boston had been suspended in order to stop him talking when the inquiry findings were published by Lord Sutherland in December.

Last month, Dr Boston told the committee of MPs that ministers’ account of what went wrong was a ‘fiction’ and evidence against him had been ‘set up’.