ABSTRACT
The local education authorities' (LEAs) record in the development of special education and the outstanding achievement of the development of the public sector higher education system owe little to Parliament's prescriptive powers. The LEA provides monthly computerized accounting data and particular costs as requested. The LEAs have expended their energies prodigally on administrative detail which is inappropriate to that level of government. The area education officer (AEO) has to be satisfied of the reasonableness of virement that concerns staffing. The education committee retain their general responsibilities, policies and liabilities for the service provided in the schools, and the schools must operate within overall policies of which the conditions of service of all staff is in this context clearly one of the most sensitive. It cannot be said that public confidence in the education service is high, notwithstanding its extraordinary achievements over the whole of the period since the 1944 Act.
