ABSTRACT
The organisation and political control of education in Britain involves complex mechanisms and diverse agencies. The complexities of political administration, a consequence of the devolution of responsibilities to the local education authorities (LEAs) by the 1944 Education Act, constitute considerable obstacles to serious architects of national reform.1 Conservative Central Government has sought to overcome some of these obstacles through legislation that claws back certain responsibilities to Parliament, the Cabinet, and the Department of Education and Science (DES). Although it is important not to overestimate the extent and capacity of centralisation to bring about effective reform, it has provided the Conservatives with mechanisms through which to attempt to control the activity of LEAs and in many cases, therefore, to attempt to steal political control from Labour councils.Understandably, centralisation has been the focus of much criticism from the left, but it is by no means unchallenged by the libertarian new right. Stuart Sexton, for example, argues that centralisation of control of education is ‘unsatisfactory and objectionable, especially in England where the whole concept is alien to our ideas of personal liberty and freedom* (Sexton, 1987: 7). Nevertheless, the right regards Central Government policy as a necessary mechanism through which to liberate the schools from LEA political control.2 The plan is ‘to create, as near as practicable, a "free market" in education. To use a popular term, it is in some sense to "privatise" the State education system* (ibid: 10). Such a system would involve the use of education vouchers, although the term itself would be avoided in favour of the more politically acceptable terms ‘credits’ and ‘entitlements’.
