The TaxPayers' Alliance - Better Government

An agenda for educational improvement

As debate over public spending descends into the absurd (with 0% spending rises and ministerial bullying of journalists), its easy to forget that behind all the bluster there are some real policy debates going on.

Perhaps the most significant of these debates concerns education, and more specifically, the future of our schools system. The Government, to its credit, put education front and centre when it came to power. For a time too, even a critic must admit, it put real effort into a reformist agenda, with - I believe - the genuine motivation of improving schools.

But for some time now that motivation has gone, and the Government has preoccupied itself with just treading water, manipulating the 'outputs' to disguise the deteriorating quality of the 'input'. Education steadily marginalised as 'schools' became just tools with which social ills will be fixed.

Conservative thinking on education has taken on board all the efforts, mistakes and neglect of the past 12 years, and been informed by the many examples of what works and what doesn't. On Tuesday Michael Gove - Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families - laid out the broad thrust of their policy in a speech to the Royal Society of the Arts, entitled 'What is Education For'. To read the whole speech, see here.

Acknowledging the steady and intended transformation of state schools into hubs for "children's services", Mr Gove notes the eclipsing of education itself: "I fear that duties on schools, and teachers, to fulfil a variety of noble purposes - everything from promoting community cohesion to developing relationships with other public bodies, trusts, committees and panels gets in the way of their core purpose – education."

The statistics on educational attainment, and the gulf that is emerging (not diminishing) between well educated children (from both state and private) and the poorly educated, are depressing:

"Schools have to clear a very specific hurdle – they have to make sure 30% of their pupils get 5 Cs or better at GCSE, including English and Maths...

This very narrow definition, and particular kind of accountability, has a tragic skewing effect on the education many children enjoy. Weaker schools, desperate to avoid being branded failing, concentrate their efforts on a narrow band of pupils – those on the borderline of a C grade – and they lead those pupils towards the sort of qualifications which may be easier to pass – but which do not serve those pupils’ interests best.

Across the educational landscape, qualifications which promise easier routes to a pass mark are growing in popularity. Media Studies GCSE entries have increased by 43% in just two years - from 41,027 candidates in 2004/5 to 59,071 in 2006/7.

At A-level the rise over time has also been significant. In 1997 just 8,954 students took media studies A-level. By 2006 the number had risen by 157%. Now I have no particular prejudice against media studies – or any other subject per se - as part of a truly rounded education. But my views aren’t the one that matter. The views of admissions tutors at Cambridge University, however, do.

He goes on ...

"Of the 75,000 children on free school meals each year (about 1 in 8 of all pupils), four out of ten fail to get even a single ‘C’ grade GCSE. Only 189 of these 75,000 go on to get three As at A Level – compared with the 175 three A’s pupils produced by just one school, Eton. Independent schools, which educate just 7% of pupils, produce more pupils who get three A's at A Level than every comprehensive school put together."

On history ...

"Ofsted has reported that "pupils knowledge and understanding of key historical facts is not good enough; their knowledge is fragmented. Young people's knowledge is very often patchy and specific, they are unable to sufficiently link discrete historical events to answer big questions, form overviews and demonstrate strong conceptual understanding. Young people's sense of chronology is relatively weak and they are generally unable to relate a longer narrative of the story of Britain."

A recent survey of students entering a Russell Group university to read history asked them to name the British general at Waterloo, the monarch during the Armada, Brunel's profession, a single 19th century Prime Minister and the location of the Boer War.

The survey found that just over one question in five was answered correctly."

That is a damning indictment, particularly considering the vocal commitments the Government has made to both education and citizenship. 

"Faced with this deterioration in standards top private schools are abandoning normal GCSEs. The number of pupils in independent schools taking the, more rigorous, international GCSE more than doubled from 2007 to 2008, from just over 15,000 to over 40,000. 46% of independent schools entered at least one pupil for an iGCSE in 2008 (iGCSE Maths is particularly popular).

... [but] the Government does not let state schools do the iGCSE so there is a growing gap between opportunities for richer children and the rest. Ed Balls recently refused to give state schools funding for the iGCSE, continues to refuse to let the iGCSE count in the league tables, and recently attacked it, extraordinarily, as not being of a "sufficiently high standard."

Gove goes onto outline Conservative plans (page 11 onwards). They pick up the baton dropped by this Government, carrying forward the program of reform that will return power (and just importantly responsibility) to schools and parents. It's an ambitious program, and it will run into the problem of vested interests and bedded in bureaucracy immediately out of the gate. But it is the far better program, if compared to last weeks Children's White Paper from the Government. That White paper, in fairness (and in credit to the Conservatives) plans to reverse the trends established in recent years. But ultimately it does so grudgingly, against its instincts; for political ends. At least Gove gives the impression that he is committed to education reform because he believes it.

Bankruptcy ... the great reformer

The Guardian reports today that the Government is to end its centralised control of schools, abandoning one of New Labour's most significant education reforms.

Details are still sketchy, as this news - like that about school mergers earlier this week - comes from DCSF leaks, not an actual bill. (A practice which the new Speaker will hopefully come down on strongly). From what has been leaked though, it appears that:

"schools will no longer have to rely on centralised national strategies for support in teaching literacy and numeracy. Instead they will able to choose from a range of suppliers or work together to improve pupils' basic skills.Primary schools in England have been expected to teach English and maths according to centralised guidelines set down by national literacy and numeracy strategies for more than 10 years.These give detailed plans for teachers on what to convey to pupils throughout the school year, with an expectation that there should be daily lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic." (BBC website)

Instead:

"... money will be redirected to schools to spend on forging networks with neighbouring schools and buying in their own advisers to help them drive up teaching standards and exam results. Good schools will be expected to federate with lower-performing schools to help them improve. Schools will still be able to teach the literacy and numeracy hours, but there will be no central bureaucracy to support it.

The changes are designed to end duplication in support for schools, which currently have an array of consultants from the local authority and the national strategies to help them improve. Instead, schools will be able to employ consultants directly to advise them, and increasingly the consultants will be other practising headteachers.

The national strategies are credited with a substantial improvement in school test results in the period after they were introduced, but that success has stalled. They were heavily criticised by the Commons education select committee, which concluded that what and how schools can teach under the programmes is too heavily prescribed. It said: "At times schooling has appeared more of a franchise operation, dependent on a recipe handed down by government rather than the exercise of professional expertise by teachers." (The Guardian)

Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, has promised Conservative support if the White Paper is as radical as leaks suggest. Moreover the NUT - perhaps proving me wrong in my suggestion that their support is rarely a good sign - has said that many would welcome "the dropping of the top down imposed strategies".

Just as with the potential school merger plans, this news should be welcomed, albeit very cautiously. Judgement should be reserved until the details are released next week, and if past form counts for anything, Ed Balls and DCSF are odds on to make these reforms (great in principle) irrelevant in practice. Damaging even. But, giving them the benefit of the doubt for now, the philosophy underpinning these proposals - returning power to schools and teachers - is spot on. 

Don't be fooled by suggestions that Ed Balls has "masterminded" these plans out of some sort of commitment to localism and school empowerment though. No one is capable of such a radical conversion. Money, as is often the case, drives these reforms, as they could save the Government up to £100m a year on its contract with the private company Capita, which delivers the national strategies.

Bankruptcy is often a catalyst for reform; leaner, more effective and efficient services emerge from a brush with administration. It's not the way anyone would have wanted them to learn, but the fiscal strategy chosen by Balls and Brown a decade ago - the one which now burdens the UK with public sector borrowing of £175 billion -  may now force them to accept the logic of a leaner state. In education, as in health, this doesn't have to mean fewer teachers, worse schools or diminished ambition. It simply means less government, less layers of bureaucracy. So the state's fiscal crises may have a silver lining, of sorts. But only if Balls (and his colleagues) is really brave enough to turn his back on his instincts and begins to trust professionals and people to deliver public services.  

Mergers and Acquisitions

When a new schools policy is announced, check the reaction of the National Union of Teachers (NUT). Supportive, and the policy is liable to be misguided. Condemnation, and the policy is perhaps worth considering.

It's a crude, but none the less useful guide. The NUT is just doing what any good union should do of course, protecting its members' interests. And certainly no one could ever argue that the NUT fails to put its members interest first and foremost. But on school issues, the public must put children's interests first, and rarely nowadays are these aligned with those of the NUT.

So news that the NUT were unimpressed by Ed Balls' new plans for school mergers (annonuced yesterday) was a positive sign. In proposals to be laid out in a new white paper next week, provision will be made for weaker schools to be merged, or even taken over by well performing schools. Schools will be allowed to pool budgets, and local authorities will be forced to consider handing control of the weakest schools to new accredited 'federations'. As Balls told the Times, "What we are looking to see is a number of 'not-for-profit' state schools directly run by the best education providers. We want to see chains of schools run by a single overall leadership, probably with a shared brand, with some shared management and governance with a shared ethos and identity".

In principle, the idea is not bad. But there is still plenty wrong with the plans. They could see the Department for Children once again moving power from schools, parents and teachers, and consolidating it in Whitehall. On past form, this is depressingly likely. Moreover the possibility that good state schools could be marked down by Ofsted if they refuse to take part in mergers - considered by Balls to be evidence of a lack of ambition - is ridiculous, and could potentially undermine any positive outcomes which come from these plans. As to the motivation, the Secretary of State's thinly veiled threats to good schools, and his comments about efficiencies, bolster the suspicion that Balls is making such moves simply to cut costs (as he is going to have to, whatever he says) and increase his control. As with some unions, Balls' interests are rarely aligned with children's.

But, all that said, as a group that has been pushing to see good schools allowed to merge, or more importantly, take over poorly performing schools, we must give these proposals a cautious welcome. They do, in some sense, move policy in the right direction, acknowledging that schools know better how to fix problems than Whitehall. Any moves that potentially give schools more power, at the expense of local authorities, DCSF and even 'teachers' (as an industry) must be applauded (however gingerly the clapping). We should have a debate about what constitutes suitable pay for 'super-heads', and oppose totally the idea that good schools be strong armed into mergers, but we should support steps which might free state schools a little from Whitehall. The jury is still out on whether yesterday's plans will do so.

Note: to put yesterday's proposals in context a little, read Alexandra Blair's piece in the Times today (see here). Investigating the turn around of a sink school in High Wycombe, it is impressive what is possible when able teachers and determined management are given the freedom to impose their own prescription for improvement.

University privitisation

Sir Roy Anderson, Vice Chancellor of Imperial College, told the Guardian this week that Britain’s top universities should be privatised:

"How important is higher education to UK plc? Staggeringly so. It is a multi-billion-pound industry. It is one of the few things we are world competitive in. If you take the top five universities, they have enormous potential to earn income for Britain. How best to do that? My own view would be to privatise them".

He has a point. If the Government allowed universities to opt out of public control, universities – such as Sir Roy’s UK ‘ivy league’ of Imperial, Oxbridge, UCL and LSE – would be able to charge the fees that they deemed suitable for a particular course. This would allow such institutions to really compete with other leading universities around the world.

Concerns about access to these elite private institutions have been allayed in the US by significant bursary schemes; bright students who cannot afford the high fees compete for generous scholarships, which helps ensure that those who deserve to attend the top institutions can do so. Privatization of these institutions may also have a positive influence on those universities that don’t choose to give up public funding; a thriving UK university sector attracts valuable foreign students (many of whom do not attend the UK’s ivy league universities) and this revenue stream will increase if Britain confirms its place as a world leader in education; for students, the pressure on all universities to drive up standards will increase, hopefully leading to better degrees and facilities.

Moreover, public universities need not lose any sort of credibility; Berkeley, in the US, is a publicly funded institution – the University of California to be precise – that has a superb global reputation.

Giving universities the freedom to set their own fees would allow a vital part of the economy to flourish, and their research would drive innovation in other sectors too. The importance of top-quality higher education is, as Sir Roy says, of staggering importance.

The 'standardisation measurement score'

Education is - by its very nature - social engineering. It provides people, young or old, with the tools with which to get on and move up. Education should be encouraged constantly, exactly because of its influence on wider society.

Which makes recent news about the Department for Children, Schools and Families' (DCSF) 'standardisation measurement score' - an effort in artificial social engineering - all the more depressing.

Under this system GCSE scores are weighted in relation to the overall success of the school; an A from a well performing school (in terms of grades achieved) is downgraded, while an A from a school where standards are low, is upgraded. Universities such as Durham and Cambridge have admitted using these weighted scores in processing applications, privileging those students from poor performing schools.  

Like many terrible ideas, this has a thin veneer of sense to it. Surely someone who has battled against the odds in a sink school, got their A's at GCSE and committed themselves to significant debts in order to go on in further education, should be given this extra little leg up.

But they shouldn't, at least not in this way. Applicants from all schools should get a place at university, ideally their first choice, but not because they have been put at the front of the pack by means of a complex mathematical formula. It is quite understandable that some universities take account of the background of students, even looking at the overall results of a school to put an applicants results in context, but there is no place in our system for some obscure 'formula'. What weight, for instance, is given to vocational GCSE's; is an A in history at a school with generally good history grades, but poor overall performance, better than an A from an overall average school? How can the system deal with teenagers who have an affluent family background but attend a struggling school? Or bright kids from poor homes who attend successful schools? Some arbitrary formula cannot begin to accommodate the various background factors.It's even somewhat insulting to know that you may have just got your place because your school has failed your class mates.

And no system that penalises entrants from the best state schools, just because they are well taught and bright, can be right. For this isn't just an attack on independent schools; the many excellent state schools in the country are directly prejudiced by the standardisation measurement score. An applicant from one of these is handicapped because his peers have done well too. Surely they should be being praised by DCSF, not undermined.

The standardisation measurement score is though, really nothing more than a cynical attempt to cover up for a serious failure to improve some poor performing schools over the past decade. The 'one size fits all' policies directed from Whitehall haven't worked, and so instead of trying something genuinely radical, DCSF pushes Universities to use these weighted grades.  

Moreover, the standardisation measurement constitutes a depressing loss of faith in the Government's ability to fix these schools. It is a loud and clear admission of defeat, an abandonment of belief in meritocracy by people who claim to be the champions of it.

The success of Charter Schools in New York

David Brooks yesterday used his column in the New York Times to draw peoples attention to the startling results coming out of New York's 'Charter Schools'.

"The typical student entered the charter middle school ... in sixth grade [12 years old] and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth [14 years old] grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile." (Text in brackets my addition).

To read the full article, click here

Charter schools are American public schools which have been freed from many of the state's, county's and school board's bureaucratic strictures. Unlike other public schools, they are free to pursue their own way in many key areas, in return for guaranteeing a certain level of results. None are allowed to charge admission, and places are frequently allocated by lottery. Needless to say, competition for places is fierce. They are, in many respects, what Tony Blair wanted City Academies to be.

The difference is that unlike New Labour's City Academies, many US Charter Schools have been given genuine freedom. The results that David Brooks is writing about refer to Harlem's Charter project, a significantly challenging inner city area, with distinct race and poverty problems. Brooks notes that:

"the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy [Harlem's Charter school] produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students."

Part of the strategy of such schools has been to "pay meticulous attention to behaviour and attitudes."
Apart from teaching pupils how to talk properly and address strangers politely, "Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school."

As Brooks says, "These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate". It's a debate in which the educational establishment is often on the opposite side though unfortunately, unhappy with fact that Charter schools do not afford teachers the same kind of protection as normal state schools (i.e they can be fired if they are considered not be performing) and because, quite simply, Charter school results make other public schools look bad. It's a debate that is being stamped out by the teachers Unions and the Government over here in the UK, but it is one we need to have. Results such as these highlighted by David Brooks should help convince many that we have much less to fear - and much to gain - by taking the bureaucracy out of schools, and let the teachers get on with it. 

Considering Tory plans for Primary school academies

If ridiculous scaremongering reaction were a measure for the strength of a new idea, the Tories ought to be well pleased with their new plans for primary schools. Beverly Hughes, the Government Children's Minister, has described them as "highly dangerous", and Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, claimed the plans would "send a chill down the spines of parents". Chris Keats, General Secretary of the NASUWT (a teachers union) offered perhaps the most blatant indication that the Tory plans were generally good news for pupils and parents, with her observation that "... this proposal for primary schools completes the Tories' blueprint for the dismantling of state education. These plans are the naked marketisation of education and will place thousands of children and young people at the mercy of private, voluntary and independent providers."  

Such comments are a real shame. There is an important debate to be had about the future of state run education. It is one which, to their credit, New Labour tried to start in 1997, and one which, to their credit, the Conservative party wish to have now. Just as Tony Blair and his education advisors saw in the past, and Michael Gove sees now, history, evidence and intuition suggests increased school independence and less centralised control is the next step in the development of taxpayer funded education, critical to dragging our school system into the 21st century. But opponents (invariably from the left) have valid points too, not least that perhaps it is a good thing that Governments retain control over the levers of societal change, in this case education. There is then a real debate to be had. The point of a democracy is that all sides of the argument are presented, and the people decide. Sadly though, it seems that some are not willing to make their case, choosing instead to rely on fear and scaremongering to push voters and parents into acquiescence. These would be the people who claimed on the weekend that Tory plans would send a chill down the spines of parents. In truth, it is they themselves that are running scared.

Before we go too far, let's consider the Tory plans themselves: "state primary schools which have demonstrated excellent performance and leadership will be given academy freedoms over their curriculum, budget, staff and school hours. They will be accountable to parents for behaviour and standards, and would be freed from local authority control." (Specific details will follow in a Green Paper).

These plans push on the Academy program begun by this Labour Government, devolving certain administrative and curricula decisions down to the schools themselves. Schools remain (despite suggestions to the contrary) funded by the taxpayer. This is is still very much 'state' education, just delivered in a new way. Private and charitable organisations are indeed invited into partnership with the state, bringing extra financial resources in return for some say over what and how it is taught. So far fears that this private influence would see a rise in questionable teaching (such as creationism over evolution) have not been seriously realised.

The general hope behind such plans is that parents will have the opportunity to participate more in the running of schools, and that this opportunity will be taken up. Currently, City Academies do not have to follow the entire national curriculum (only the core English, Maths and Science are mandatory) and School heads have more leeway in respect to when the school opens and shuts, how much teachers are paid, and what 'non-statutory' central government guidance they follow. They are, in short, more independent of central government, free to pursue an educational course as much set by the wishes of parents, teachers and pupils as by central government. Conventional state schools, needless to say, are keen for these freedoms to be extended to them too. (Please note that while a couple of teachers' unions suggest that comprehensive schools don't want the academy freedoms, by far the largest teachers' union does. As on most issues, teachers do not speak on this with one voice).

The actual results from City Academies are mixed though, with data often showing only marginal improvements in results. The Tories (for obvious reasons) and New Labour educationalists (again for obvious reasons) argue that the City Academy program has been a great success. Conon Ryan, Tony Blair's education advisor, has urged Labour to adopt the Tory proposals for primary schools, claiming that: "Labour's academies programme - for that's what it is - is successfully raising standards in many secondary schools, and there is no reason why it shouldn't be extended to primary schools". Lord Adonis, a former Labour education minister (now transport), is also rumoured to be a fan.

But the truth is that the Academy program was not really enough in the first place, and has - since its creation - been reigned in by the manic controlling tendencies of Ed Balls and Gordon Brown, who are both fundamentally opposed to the idea of the Government relinquishing any control. The full potential of the scheme was never going to be realised while the Department for Children, Schools and Families worked assiduously to undermine it. In fact, in these circumstances it is impressive that the Academies have achieved any improvement at all.

What was missing from the original plans, and what is missing from the Tory primary school plans, is a mechanism to establish genuine competition between schools, as well as the ability for parents to select one school over another. This would indeed be a radical shift, and it could not be imposed on England overnight (just as it hasn't been in other countries). What is needed is pilot scheme though, covering one or two Local Education Authorities (LEAs), where Tory plans are introduced alongside an entirely new system of school funding, wherein parents have a choice over which school got their child's allocated funding. The current system props up poor schools while unintentionally privileging the few children who do get into the good schools. It simply doesn't make sense. Everyone should have the ability to go to the good schools, but in order to do so, the good schools have to be able to take over the bad ones. Putting the financial choice in the hands of parents would start this process.

So the Tory plans for primary school academies are a step in the right direction, but only a step. Schools at every level must be freed from central control, but beyond that they need to experience the hard realities of the market. None of this has to mean an end to British state education, just an improvement to it, as Chris Keats remarks above about this being the beginning of the end for British state education are as wrong as they are ridiculous; they would simply mean the end to a system over which she and her union has control, much more control than parents. No-one - at least no-one who wants to be taken seriously - can suggest the primary school system is doing well. But as the remarks from the Government ministers and Union leaders make clear (as similar ones did in the 1990's and early 2000's) there are plenty of people who are quite willing to let state education - whether primary or secondary - continue in its drift into mediocrity. For the sake of their own interests, be it political or financial, these people are willing to see children be failed by the state sponsored system.

British state education does not need 'shock therapy', but it does need change. More a Chinese post communist economic strategy than a Russian. While far from perfect the Tory plans - along with Labour's original academy programme - are steps in the right direction. There will need to be more steps, but at least both acknowledge the direction in which policy should go.

Boston, Balls and the Committee

No-one expected Sir Ken Boston's session with the Commons' Children, Schools and Families Committee to be dull, but few probably expected him to go as far he did. Ed Balls (the DCSF secretary of state) was accused of 'sexing up' evidence given to an inquiry into the SATs fiasco, and the department's general claim that it was at a distance from important decisions and monitoring was summarily dismissed by the former head of the QCA.

For a video of Sir Ken Boston's session, please follow this link:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/VideoPlayer.aspx?meetingId=3928&rel=ok

For a summary of some of his remarks, please follow the link to the Times below:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6146805.ece

But while much of the news from Sir Ken's remarks will focus on his accusations about Ed Balls (as the Times does above) , what was more interesting for a Better Government reader was his analysis of the problems with the quango system; remarks which could have been, in many respects, lifted directly from past posts on this page.

When available the formal minutes of his remarks will be linked and reproduced here, but till then suffice to say Sir Ken rubbished the notion that 'independent arms length bodies' were either independent or arms length. He identified the unworkable dynamic between DCSF and the QCA as significant factor behind the SATs fiasco last year. While designed to be politically and administratively independent, the QCA was nothing of the sort, with Departmental (and more importantly political) control a constant feature. However, while actually part of the Department (functionally and politically), when it came down to responsibility, all the blame fell on the QCA. He observed that the arrangement between DCSF and the QCA worked simply to enable the Government to continue to control every aspect of the system, while shielding them from accountability when things went wrong. 

Such an arrangement defines modern British government. It is an arrangement that serves the Government first and the taxpayer second, affording ministers political cover at the expense of proper service delivery. There is a strong case for independent authorities carrying out the responsibilities of the state. But these must be genuniely independent, directed by the people through the House of Commons, not by the politics of the party in Government. Sir Ken Boston stressed repeatedly this morning that any future education quangos must be accountable only to the House of Commons, not the Department for Children, Schools and Families. We agree. Only then can we hope to avoid the political meddling that dooms are public services to unacceptably poor performance.  

The quango bites back

Last year's SATs fiasco has been discussed at some length on this page before (such as here and here), both in terms of why it arose, as well identifying those who should take responsibility.

In fact the answer to the second question is really the answer to the first, and it applies much more broadly to the problems of modern government than just this one issue. For when no one is really responsible for anything, everything quickly goes wrong - as it has done repeatedly at the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), and did at the QCA over SATs.

Service delivery disasters - such as with SATs or this years scandalous handling of the 'Building Schools for the Future' programme - come about because Government (or more accurately Ministers) have developed a system in which they may avoid political responsibility but maintain managerial control, by out-sourcing tasks to large 'independent' quangos.

Over the past 25 years Governments' have spun a web of 'arms length bodies', agencies and independent authorities, which now carry out most of the vital (and expensive) functions of government. No doubt bodies were occasionally set up with good intentions (to improve efficiency or quality) but too often they exist primarily as a firewall for political responsibility. And as suggested above, the spread of this form of government has elicited a concurrent rise in service delivery disaster, failing the citizen and over-burdening the taxpayer. With critical decisions now taken by several different people in several different bodies, confusion reigns. Investigations into service failures (such the SATs problems) reveal this again and again. But the system subverts the idea of 'responsibility'; with no one really in charge no one can be really held responsible, particularly ministers. At most the extremely well paid head of a quango will fall (or be pushed) onto their sword, no doubt with the promise of more fantastically paid public sector work in the future if they take their handsome compensation package, shut up and disappear for a few years.

But now and then a quango will bite back. The Sunday Times reported yesterday that Sir Ken Boston - chief executive of the quango notionally in charge of examinations (the QCA) during the SATs problems last year, but who has since resigned - is to break the silence he has maintained since his departure. In a session with the Parliamentary Committee for Children, Schools and Families, Boston plans to explode the idea - maintained by Ed Balls and other minister in DCSF - that they had no knowledge that things were going so wrong with the SATs until the last minute. (Although that admission alone should warrant their resignations). Boston will tell the Committee that ministers were fully briefed on the problems, and that in fact ministers and top civil servants had been forewarned that a disaster was possible for years.

Ed Balls assiduously distanced himself from the mess at the time, dumping the blame squarely with the QCA, and ultimately Sir Ken Boston; (note a very similar pattern last month with the head of the Learning and Skills Council). As is becoming clear from the news about Mr Balls associations with Mr McBride, Mr Balls has no intention of taking responsibility for his mistakes and will no doubt go out of his way to discredit Sir Ken Boston. But Sir Ken (who to his credit resigned as soon as the full extent of the problems become clear) is clearly unhappy with fact that the system has once again shielded those ultimately responsible - Mr Balls and other Government ministers- from the criticism they deserve. For once at least, it seems a quango boss is not happy to carry the can for his recent political masters, and the public will hopefully get a first hand account of how 'government-by-quango' really works when he makes his case before the Committee.

The buck must stop with Balls

Michael Gove, Shadow Secretary for Children, School and Families, writes a spirited piece in the Telegraph today, laying out why Ed Balls must take responsibility for the Government's numerous educational blunders: Ed Balls is to blame for the sixth form funding shambles

Shielding himself from accountability behind a web of quangos, while willfully jeopardizing the futures of thousands of children in his pursuit of power and his interest in political point scoring, Ed Balls represents the worst kind of politician, let alone minister.

Rewarded for his sycophancy with one of - if not the - most important departments in Government, Balls' has chosen to perceive any criticism of English state education as a party political attack, rebutting it as such, and considering his clever rebuttal as a resolution of the problem. As to policy, talk and money have been very cheap up until recently, and education policy has often been nothing but a marriage of the two; lofty promise with millions of pounds attached.

The problems bedeviling the system require real reform though, and reform takes guts and willing. But at least the solutions are right there for politicians to see, not just abroad, but in our own country, where hundreds of schools continue to do well in spite of the strictures placed upon them by Whitehall. Let us hope that the next government accepts the simple truths in front of them, and in particular the insight that with greater independence from Government come better school results, and more importantly (although harder to measure) better education. This is not about teachers or schools, pupils or playgrounds, but about a system unable to embrace examples of best practice because of the political motivations of the controlling department. It is a system which Mr Balls personifies.