This episode has shredded confidence in the integrity of England's exam system

It is in the light of the wilder estimates of the damage – some ranging up to 50,000 students – that we can greet with relief the news that "only" 1,220 A-level and 733 AS-level students have had seen their grades improved after the independent Tomlinson inquiry into allegations of grade-fixing.

The schools standards minister, David Miliband, spoke about the fiasco yesterday as though it were some sort of triumph for the Government. It wasn't convincing. This is, in fact, a disaster on an unprecedented scale, as well as a traumatic experience for those students who have seen themselves deprived of the place at university they wanted and deserved.

The education secretary, Estelle Morris, and her team seem not to realise the distress that has been caused. This is a system for which they are, ultimately, politically responsible. If this were the litigious United States, they might now be facing astronomical legal claims for damages from those thousands of students affected. The greatest long-term effect, however, is the way that this episode has shredded confidence in the integrity of the English examination system.

Much of the blame must lie with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which had a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the new AS-level system worked well and retained the respect that the old A-level commanded. The authority should have warned ministers about what was going wrong. Sir William Stubbs, the former chairman of the QCA, who was sacked during the initial row, says that the results vindicated not only the exam boards but the A-level system itself. But the Tomlinson inquiry only considered the grading of papers, and not how they were marked, so doubts about that aspect of the scandal may linger. David Hart, the headteachers' leader, is right to say that the chief executive of the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board should consider his position very carefully.

We may yet find that an independent inquiry into marking by the various boards may be necessary before full confidence in the system can be restored. We must also be assured that the ministerial obsession with target-setting and league tables has not infected the integrity of the system. Mr Miliband may claim "the uncertainty is now over", but that is not how many parents and students feel about our micro-managed schools

What has become abundantly clear is that the reforms to the A-level system were brought in too quickly and without sufficient understanding of them on the part of teachers and students. Estelle Morris was Secretary of State for Education only during the second half of this process, and her predecessor, David Blunkett, has now escaped to the relative safety of the Home Office. True, Ms Morris served as schools minister under Mr Blunkett, but she did not have responsibility for education after the age of 16. Tessa Blackstone was responsible for that side of the department's work, so her name must be added to the list of the culpable.

The task facing Ms Morris and Mr Miliband now is, first, to face up to the scale of the crisis of confidence in the system and, second, find ways of rebuilding faith in it. In the long run it would be desirable, as The Independent has consistently argued, to move towards the continental European model of a baccalaureate. It is a pity that that this far-reaching reform must wait until the present A-levels are placed on a sounder footing.