Students training to become chartered legal executives are the latest to struggle with faulty assessment software, according to complaints about lost exam time and poor communication.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) has apologised after ‘a small number’ of students experienced technical failures and struggled to login to online assessments earlier this week.

‘We are really sorry this happened, and although this third party supplier technology failure was not a CILEx specific issue having affected all those providers using this technology at the time of the incident, we want to make it clear that we are doing everything to ensure that everyone affected is being supported fully.

‘We are in constant communication with the supplier and have made it clear to them that we expect an urgent explanation and a commitment that this will not happen again,’ the organisation said in a statement.

It added that all candidates sitting the examination were given the allotted time despite the delayed start, meaning all candidates had the opportunity to complete the assessment.

However, students have claimed this is ‘factually incorrect’ and that candidates did lose exam time. Students also allege that when they called the exam helpline they were kept on hold for up to 40 minutes, only to be hung up on.

Last month, the Bar Standards Board came under fire after technical issues meant dozens of students were unable to sit the online tests. The regulator has yet to announce when affected students can re-sit the mandatory papers.