ABSTRACT
The side-lining of governing bodies led to power being increasingly centred in the hands of headteachers and Local Education Authority officials. Growing demands during the 1960s for more parental accountability led to the setting up of the Taylor Committee in 1975. Their report recommended, amongst other things, that every school should have its own governing body, and the 1986 Education Act put many of the recommendations of that report into effect. The 1986 Education Act requires that the governing body publish an annual report to parents which will explain how the governing body has put into practice its plans for the school during the previous year. Governing bodies form an important link in the system of democratic accountability in this country. They are seen as a means through which the producer, the school, is to be made responsive to the consumer, that is the parent, or perhaps more correctly, the child.
