ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses current developments in the education systems of England and Wales and of Scotland. It attempts to bring some considerations from the wider field of policy studies to bear upon the relatively closed dialogue of educational policy and practice. The chapter steps back from events to develop conceptual themes that may enable a fresh look to be taken at what has sometimes become a fairly unproductive political argument about relationships and powers in a public system. The chapter addresses the question of the place of local education authorities, one of the participants in a now-discredited partnership, in the new relationships that are being forged under the aegis of government policies that have been implanted since the 1970s. It refers that partnership is not the horizontal one between parents and schools at the same level, but the vertical one linking participants at different levels into a system of policy-making and implementation.
