ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of parents in the particular aspect of educational policy-making. It provides an opportunity to compare and contrast the various forms of consultation and participation that took place over the issue of sixth-form provision in Portsmouth between 1981 and 1983. School reorganisation and, in particular, school closure is an acute spatial political problem because benefits and costs that are not geographically uniform, are altered. The procedures for making school reorganisation and closure decisions are likely to be crucial. The city operated a 'designated area' system whereby parents were permitted to send their children to a school other than the one designated, only if there were 'extra' places available. Consultation with local Area advisory committee, parents and teachers was, therefore, politically convenient as well as being a statutory requirement. Having agreed in principle to establish a sixth-form college, there remained the thorny problem of which existing secondary school should be closed to make way for it.
