ABSTRACT
We have seen that the protracted debate about diversification and its implementation has returned again and again to the need for policy and planning. In the early 1980s, when the FL2 was perceived to be at great risk (a situation which has not noticeably improved during the past decade) it was clear that the best way to consolidate its position nationally was for LEAs to develop plans locally that would ensure a range of provision. One of the present authors, with Veronica Stencel, had called for the formulation of local policy and the development of plans for its implementation, in a study published in 1983,1 and we have recounted in earlier chapters the steps taken to produce a national policy position which would include diversification. Policy statements by the DES, gratifyingly, have included exhortations to LEAs to make sure that provision locally is properly ‘diversified’.
