ABSTRACT
The Association of County Councils referred back its Education Committee's approval of Oakes with almost no explanation, and there were 'rumours that instructions were received from the Conservative hierarchy to local education authorities party faithfuls to block the Oakes proposals being implemented before the general election'. A high-powered working party of the Conservative National Advisory Committee on Education, which included Sir William Van Straubenzee, Keith Hampson and two former leaders of Council of Local Education Authorities, Angela Rumbold and John Morrell, set about trying to find a compromise solution. Soon Sir Keith attended a meeting of the National Advisory Body (NAB) Committee taking the opportunity to reassure 'its membership of local politicians of its value to him'. The problems which have faced NAB in the 1980s have been those which have dogged the English educational system generally. NAB considered a number of ways in which money could be saved in the longer term.
