The changing face of the local government of education in the 21st century: living with the private sector in selected local authorities as seen by their chief officers and others

Abstract

The implementation of the Education Reform Act (DES 1988) saw fundamental changes in the structure of education in England; in the relationship between schools and local education authorities and in the establishment of the private sector as a competitor to local education authorities in delivering services. Further legislation introduced by both the then Conservative Government and after 1997 by a Labour Government saw these changes further embedded. This research seeks through a review of literature to find out why those legislative changes were implemented and by investigating four local education authorities review how those changes impacted on their performance. This is a qualitative study that gathered data through the use of semi-structured interviews to create four case studies. Against a background of successive governments seeing the use of the market place, competition and the private sector as a means of delivering their aim of improving public sector performance this research provides an insight into how four local authorities worked with the private sector following their Ofsted inspections.