ABSTRACT
The decentralisation of responsibilities in England and Wales is largely about finance and human and physical resources. It is also about decentralisation to schools with head teacher and governing bodies being given the powers to make decisions. In the context of our earlier discussion of autonomy, therefore, the changes relate to two levels of autonomy-the principal and the institution-and make no direct reference to learners. In this chapter, then, our intention is to examine how the autonomy of head teachers and governing bodies has been used. Decentralisation of responsibility for finance has given schools the autonomy to make their own judgements on spending priorities from their delegated budget: it is for schools to assess needs and match resources to them. Evidence on how schools have responded to these new administrative and managerial responsibilities provides the basis for the first section of this chapter.
