ABSTRACT
During the 1980s and 1990s, managing the system of state schooling became an increasingly politicised issue in the United Kingdom (UK). The government was, at least in terms of its rhetoric, attempting to shatter what it regarded as the cosy relationships which had developed within the education community since 1945. As the public sector had expanded, so had the role and influence of professionals within the welfare bureaucracies. Prevailing assumptions about the organisation and the management of the schooling system were to be challenged. The Conservative governments promised that local government and educational professionals would no longer be left to determine the management of the schooling system. Central government would take a more direct role in shaping the management of schools at local level than had been the case in the forty years or so following the Education Acts of 1944 (England) and 1945 (Scotland).
