Local Education Services

Local Education Services

© James Morrison 2007

Structure of the Education System

Education in Britain is divided into four broad “phases”:

·           Primary phase – Education in all the subjects of “primary” importance (i.e. English language, maths, basis history and science) in primary schools (ages five to 11); infant (five to seven) and junior schools (seven to 11): or first (five to eight/nine) and middle schools (eight/nine to 12/13)

·           Secondary phase – Education (for11/13 – 16/19 year olds) in primary subjects like English and maths, but with increasing specialisation after pupils take their “options” at 13 or 14.

·           Further education – “Catch-up” education for the less academic and/or additional qualifications for those who do well at GCSEs – AS levels, A-levels, and the new ‘vocational’ diplomas. The generic term used to describe FE and technical colleges is tertiary colleges

·           Higher education – University education for those who have gained the requisite number of A-levels or equivalent qualifications.

History of the Schools System

Until the reign of Queen Victoria, educational provision by local authorities was sporadic to no-existent.  After that, the main stages in the gradual emergence of locally run schooling were as follows:-

• 1841 – The School Sites Act introduces the concept of voluntary schools in villages and rural areas: these were built on land ”donated” to a given area by a local landowner or vicar.  Rulings stated that land and buildings would revert to descendants of the original donor or current vicar if they ceased to be used as a school.

• 1870 – Elementary Education Act builds on emergence of voluntary schools (which offered “elementary” or primary education, often in single rooms for mixed ages) by setting up school boards in areas with a shortage.  They were elected and could levy rates to meet building and maintenance buildings.

• 1901 - Schools boards abolished by the Education Act, which instead mad the provision of elementary schools the responsibility of new emerging county councils.  Councils also encourages to provide direct financial help to these schools.

• 1918 – Status of county councils as local education authorities (LEAs) cemented with the abolition of fees in elementary schools and the formal raising of the school leaving age to 15.  Nursery education introduced for children under the age of five.

• 1944 – The single most significant reform of the first half of the 20^th century was the introduction in yet another Act of a new system of comprehensive education in England and Wales, overseen by a Secretary of State for Education.  He or she delegated responsibility for actually running and planning local schools in the maintained – or “state” – sector to LEAs.  The Act also did the following:

(a)     Set up a three-tier system of primary, secondary and further education

(b)     Made provision for child welfare and children with disabilities

(c)      Abolished fees in secondary schools

(d)     Raised the school leaving age to 15

·           1960s/70s – Emergence of the controversial “11-plus” exams for entry to secondary schools: children who score over a certain grade are offered places at grammar schools, while those who do less well are sent to either secondary modern (ordinary comprehensive) or technical schools.  The process is known as selection.

·           1965 – Labour government calls for LEAs to start planning to convert all schools into comprehensives – thus eliminating the need for a divisive selection process.

·           1970 – The then Tory Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher, tells LEAs they are no longer bound to do this.

·           1976 – Recently re-elected government urges all those LEAs that have still to abolish grammar schools to submit schemes outlining how they planned to do so as soon as possible.

·           1979 – Tories return to power and repeal this stipulation.

·           1980 – The Government introduces the assisted places scheme -  a means by which pupils from lower income families who were successful in entrance exams for independent schools (i.e. private and public schools) can have their fees, but not boarding fees, reduced on a set scale.

The 1988 Education Reform Act

As with so many areas of central and local government, the biggest culture shift away from the concept of universal state education under the control of LEAs took place under the 1980s Thatcher government.  The 1988 Act directly challenged the idea of local authority control by introducing the concept that local parents, community groups and even businesses should be given more sway over the running of their schools:

·           Parents and governors of individual schools with a least 300 pupils were offered the chance to “opt-out” of local authority control and be given grant-maintained status.  In a manner not dissimilar to the way in which GPs were later offered the chance to become “fundholders” with control of their own budgets, GM schools were funded directly by central government, which then “recharged” the costs to the LEA.  The stated aim of the reform was to improve standards by introducing an element of competition for pupils.  The system was also know as local management of schools (LMS).

·           A single National Curriculum was introduced to universalise the way in which specific key subjects were taught and assessed.

·           Further education and sixth-form colleges were taken out of LEA control and transferred to a new FE sector funded directly through central government via the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils (two mammoth quangos)

·           The Act also allowed individual LEAs the discretion to move as quickly as they liked towards the new system, meaning that wide discrepancies emerged between its application in different areas.

Controversies Surrounding the 1988 Act

The introduction of grant-maintained schools proved to be one of the most divisive education reforms of the 20^th century.  Its ramifications, still felt widely to this day, including the following:

·           Schools that opted out of local authority control were seen as being granted unfairly favourable financial treatment from government.

·           Many GM applications were made by schools seeking to avoid closure or amalgamation proposed by their LEAs to reduce surplus places – a factor which threw councils’ financial plans.

·           The eventual number of approved GM schools fell well short of the Conservatives’ initial estimates, meaning that, in some people’s eyes, the cost of introducing the system was never wholly justified.

·           Despite the fact that the Labour government put an end to the creation of any new GM schools on coming to power, both Tony Blair and the administration’s first Social Security Secretary, Harriet Harman, provoked discord by sending their own children to them, Mr Blair’s son, Euan, attended the GM Oratory School.

Since 1988, there has been a further succession of major education reforms, under both the Tories and New Labour.  The key ones are:

·           1992 – Local league tables of schools covering National Curriculum test results, truancy rates and the first destinations of school leavers released for first time amide huge initial controversy.

·           1993 – Secretary of State formally given duty of “promoting the education of the people of England and Wales” in a new Act.  No mention any longer of the role of LEAs, and new quangos – The Funding Agency for Schools and The Schools Funding Council for Wales – introduced.  In areas where a large number of GM schools existed, the agency could share with the LEA – or even take over altogether – its schools planning and financial role.

·           1996 – All post-1944 Acts pulled together in a single Consolidation Act running to 583 sections and 40 schedules.  The act also gave the Education Secretary the right to publish information about schools judged to be relevant to “parental choice”.  This normally took the form of the league tables.

·           1997 – The assisted places scheme scrapped.

The Main Educational Authorities and Their Roles

Department for Children, Schools and Families, and the Secretary of State

The role of the Secretary of State has become an increasingly interventionist one as the powers of LEAs have been eroded over the years.  He or she now undertakes the following duties:

·           Intervenes to prevent unreasonable uses of power/acts in default where particular bodies are failing to carry out their statutory duties.

·           Can direct LEAs and other to reduce surplus places in schools or to increase provision where there is high demand.

·           Since the advent of New Labour, he or she can place individual schools under special measures if they are judged to be “failing”, under the terms of the so-called Fresh Start Initiative (such schools are normally given two years to improve and, if they fail to, are “re-opened” with new management and teaching staff).

·           2000 (March 1) – David Blunkett, the then Education Secretary, announced at the NUT conference that he wanted LEAs to consider a “fresh start” for any schools where fewer than 15 per cent of their pupils achieved five or more GCSE passes as grades C or above.  First on the block was Gillingham Community College in Medway, Kent, not one of whose pupils had achieved a GCSE grade C.

Local education authorities

LEAs have had their powers increasingly eroded over the past 20 years, with the growing emphasis on self-government by schools and direct intervention in cases of under-performance by the Secretary of State, and their recent absorption into new, all-encompassing children’s services departments under the ‘Every Child Matters’ reforms ushered in following the Victoria Climbie case.

The most significant changes in the nature of their powers include the following:

·           1988 – introduction of local management of schools (LMS) and grant-maintained (GM) schools sees head-teachers and governors of many high-performing state schools granted new powers over their day-to-day decisions

·           1993 – Statutory ‘duty’ of LEAs to appoint an education committee removed, although in practice most have continued to do so.

·           New Labour has proposed that those that remain should include parents – just as the Tories introduced church reps and teachers.

·           Role of chief education officer reduced, and in some cases LEAs can get away without appointing one at all.

·           1998 – School Standards and Frameworks Act introduced requirement for every LEA to prepare an education development plan (EDP) setting out proposals to Secretary of State for developing local school provision

·           2001 onwards – LEA powers over school admissions and staffing policies progressively undermined in New Labour’s second term by the introduction of academies and foundation schools with greater autonomy from councils

·           2004 – new children’s services departments formed, combining children’s social services with the responsibilities for schools and FE of pre-existing education departments. New children’s trusts set up – operating out of local community centres and/or schools – to bring together all types of professional and agency involved in promoting child welfare and education

Despite these various curbs to its authority, the LEA retains significance at local level particularly in funding terms: it is responsible for providing and maintaining premises for primary and secondary schools and for channelling funds to the governors of LMS schools, as well as ensuring that all schools in its area follow the National Curriculum.

Schools Organisation Committee

Every unitary authority and county council must set up a committee which meets and acts independently of the local authority. It comprises councillors and representatives of other interest groups (e.g. members of governing boards of local foundation – ‘opt-out’ – schools, and reps of churches that own some local school buildings and facilities which are otherwise subsidised by the council). The committee meets every three years to consider a school organisation plan proposed by the council, which covers issues such as prospective mergers, closures and changes to catchment areas

Office of the Schools Adjudicator

This regulator rules on disputes between parents/local communities and schools, primarily over admissions policy issues (i.e. a school’s decision to exclude certain applicants due to their location outside what it views as its “catchment area”). Can also intervene in cases where schools are being reorganised – closed down, merged or expanded – but there is local disagreement about the implications of this.

Changing Nature and Composition of Boards of Governors

The main stages in the transformation of the role and composition of boards of school governors are as follows:

·           1986 – Education Act changes the composition of governing bodies to reduce the representation of the LEA and create more places for parents and local business communities as well as headteachers.

·           Until 1998 – Size of governing bodies/boards depended on number of pupils in the school, but was composed of four groups – parents, LEA, teacher and co-opted (always the single largest contingent). Voluntary/aided schools would have representatives from the church or body that was aiding the school, and in some areas there would also be a presence from the local parish or district council.

·           Since 1998 – The Schools Standards and Frameworks Act increased the number of parents on school governing bodies.  The rules over the appointment of different types of governors are as follows:

(a)   LEAs nominate governors on a fixed four-year term, sometimes advertising for volunteers and sometimes, controversially, choosing people on a party political basis.

(b)   Parent governors are elected for a four-year term by parents of registered pupils at a given school (those whose children leave the school during their tenure can remain for the rest of the term).

(c)   Teacher governors elected for four years by teachers at school (those who leave the school during their tenure must resign).

(d)   Co-opted governors chosen by other governors, who must ensure that local business and parish and district councils are represented.

·           2001 onwards – New Labour’s second term saw the introduction of self-governing academies, with a degree of power to even use academic selection (a longstanding Labour no-no), and foundation schools (a new form of GM-school, albeit with slightly closer ties to local authorities)

·           2007 – Education and Inspections Act introduced the concept of the trust school – a type of self-governing school with even greater powers of autonomy than foundation schools, that is able to set up its own charitable trust to manage its affairs. These took the foundation school idea a stage further, with local authorities having an even more arms-length involvement in their running than ever

The governing bodies are obliged to report to parents at their school on an annual basis, inviting them at the same time to an official launch.  Headteachers have a right to attend this too, whether they themselves are governors or not.

Although the press has no automatic right to attend governors’ meetings, it can be invited to do so.  In addition, if 20 per cent of parents are present, resolutions can be proposed and passed at these meetings.  These must be passed on to the LEA if related to its responsibilities.

Today’s governors also have a role in the exercise of discipline in schools: they are allowed to draw up statements of general principles that the headteacher must take into account in disciplining pupils and, where pupils have been suspended or excluded, the board can also direct the headteacher to reinstate them.  Such decisions can be appealed against.

The Evolution of Teacher Training

The current picture surrounding teacher training is as follows:

·           Teacher training courses, held at a variety of higher education institutions, are funded by the Teacher Training Agency – an executive agency of the DfES

·           Teachers’ salaries are fixed at national level by the Government but they are actually employed by LEAs/governors of voluntary aided schools.  Negotiations are undertaken at a national level under the terms of the Schools Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1991and a review body, appointed by the Prime Minister, reports to the Education Secretary, who directs is on its precise terms of reference.

·           A new General Teacher Council (GTC) set up for England (with an equivalent body in Wales) by New Labour under the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 in an effort to make teaching more “attractive” after years of bad publicity about work pressures and poor pay.  Its remit included:

(a)     Setting standards of teaching and teacher conduct

(b)     Defining the role of the teaching profession

(c)     Overseeing the training, recruitment, career development and performance management of teachers AND

(d)     Ensuring teachers and applicants were medically fit to teach

(e)     To discipline teachers in cases of unacceptable professional conduct, serious professional incompetence or conviction of a relevant criminal offence.  Teachers can be conditionally registered, suspended or prohibited – depended on the gravity of their offence or unfitness to teach – and can appeal to High Court.

·                    In relation to child protection, for several years there has been anon-statutory list of people regarded as “unsuitable for teaching”, maintained by the DfE/DfEE/DfEs, known as List 99 (after the Child Protection Act 1999)

The Range and Types of Schools Prior to 1998

Schools could be in the private sector (i.e. independent schools or public schools) or in the state sector (infant, primary, comprehensive, etc).  The latter were usually referred to as maintained – either by LEAs or more directly by central government on a GM basis.  The main types of maintained school were as follows:

·           County schools – Established by the LEA, which owned their sites and buildings, these often had the word “county” in their names.

·           Voluntary schools – Though run by LEAs, their land and/pr buildings were actually owned by their own trustees.  Voluntary schools could be further sub-divided in the following:

(a)     Voluntary controlled schools – Usually connected with the Church of England, Free Church, or a local landowner or charity.  These tended to have church representatives on their governing bodies, and the ministers would retain working associations with them

(b)     Voluntary aided schools – Tended to have more autonomy from LEAs than their voluntary controlled counterparts, and be connected with the Roman Catholic, rather than C of E, church.  LEAs still paid their teachers’ salaries, although technically they were employed by the schools’ governors.  However, while the LEA paid for internal repairs, external ones would be financed by the governors, as would 15 per cent of the value of improvements to the schools (the remainder being met by the DfEE)

(c)     Special agreement schools – Much rarer than the other two types, these were established in specific circumstances (e.g. when the C of E wished to work with the Free Church in an area)

·      Special schools – Set up to meet the needs of children with mental and/or learning and/or physical disabilities.  Most children in this position are educated in the normal state system, but if they are awarded a “statement of special education need” – a process known as statementing – they may be sent to a special school.

·      Grant maintained (GM) schools – Schools whose budgets were run by their governors and allocated directly by central government after being granted permission to “opt out” of direct local authority control.  Tony Blair and former Social Security Secretary Harriet Harman controversially sent their children to GM schools 0 despite Labour’s distaste for this when in Opposition

·      Grammar schools – Secondary schools located in some parts of England where academically able pupils can go if they pass their 11-plus exam at the end of their primary school education.

The Range and Types of Schools After 1998

The names of schools were reclassified in the following ways:

Old                                                                                                New

County                                                                                    Community College

Controlled                                                                        Voluntary Controlled

Aided                                                                                    Voluntary Aided

Special Agreement                                                            Voluntary Aided

Maintained Special                                                            Community Special

GM (previous county/controlled)                                    Foundation

GM (established by Funding Agency)                        Foundation

GM (previously aided/special agreement)                        Voluntary Aided

GM Special                                                                        Foundation Special

Under the terms of the SSFA 1998, governors of GM schools could either choose to accept the title it had given them or, after balloting its parents, apply to the Education Secretary for a different category.

The Future of Foundation Schools and the “Opt out” Culture

Despite Labour’s supposed opposition to the idea of schools breaking away from local authority control, and its historical dislike of the idea of academic “selection”, Mr Blair published a controversial Education White Paper after the 2005 election in which he outlined plans to U-turn on the party’s previous ideological stand and go full throttle for a new type of “opt out” culture.  The main focuses of the new Bill, strongly opposed by left-wing Labour MPs and trades unions, are as follows:

·           “Successful” schools (those that perform strongly in government league tables) to be granted “super school” status.  This will enable them, at the very least, to set their own pay policy and decide how they wish to raise money for new buildings and resources and spend the budgets allocated to them. These schools – a beefed-up version of the existing foundation schools – are to be renamed trust schools

·           These and other major decisions to be made directly by school governors, giving parents a far greater direct say in the running of the school’s affairs

·           High-performing schools to potentially be given control of their own admissions policy – a move which son parents’ groups, unions and Labour traditionalists object to on the grounds that popular schools may be able to reintroduce a form of selection (i.e. choosing only the academically brightest pupils and/or rejecting children on the basis of other criteria they might be allowed to determine themselves, such as their prior behaviour records etc)

·           Local authorities to be reduced in many areas to “commissioners” of education services, rather than providers.  This model is seen by many as being an extension of the GM system Labour vowed to abolish while in Opposition, and more akin to recent changes in the internal structure of the NHS, in which primary care trusts and strategic health authorities “commission” from hospitals, ambulance services and mental health trusts

Other Recent Trends in Schooling

In addition to the sweeping reforms introduced by the 1988 Act, both the 1980s and 1990s Conservative government and New Labour have promoted a variety of other modes of school-based learning:

·           City Technology Colleges – The Tories began to experiment with new kinds of secondary schools, CTCs, specifically designed to prepare pupils for careers in science, technology and maths.  The first were set up in Kingshurst, Birmingham, and Nottingham.  Controversially, while the schools themselves received most of their funding direct from central government, the capital costs of buildings and equipment were shared with business sponsors (Bradford ended up with a “Dixons CTC”, for example)

·           Academies – Tony Blair’s equivalent of City Technology Colleges, these are major capital investments, usually financed through PPP/PFI and targeted at areas of deprivation/academic under-achievement. In some cases, existing schools have been ‘improved’ in this way, rather than new ones built. Despite a sluggish start, academically speaking, recent reports suggest academies are finally starting to improve the educational prospects of children in poorer areas. There are currently a little over 40, but Blair set out plans for their number to increase to as many as 400 within a few years. The present government is committed to opening 200 by 2010. The Church of England has just been given the go-ahead to open a swathe of academies, several private schools have ‘converted’ into them (e.g. Bristol Cathedral School), and a growing number of independent schools (e.g. Wellington School – run by Mr Blair’s biographer, Anthony Seldon), not to mention private companies, have become involved in sponsoring and running them

·           Faith schools – Tony Blair was a vocal advocate of the standards of discipline and academic achievement in faith schools, and sent his own son, Euan, to the Roman Catholic Oratory School.  After a long lull, the number of faith schools has begun to increase again – with four Muslim, two Sikh, one Greek Orthodox and one Seventh Day Adventist school being set up since 1998.  The 2001 Education Bill stipulated that any new demand for faith schools should be met by the state, rather than the private sector.  It envisaged 100 Church of England schools and a further 20 for other faiths, including a Muslim girls school in Birmingham and an Evangelical Christian school in Leeds.  Since September 11, 2001, and the protests outside Belfast’s Holy Cross school, this policy has been moderated, and faith schools are only now set up when the views of the whole community have been taken into account

·           Sixth-Form and Further Education colleges (tertiary colleges) – Both used to be maintained by LEAs but are now self-governing.  The former are geared towards 16 to 19-year-old students, while the latter tend to provide further education to students over the age of 19

New Labour and the Great Selection Debate

Successive Labour governments have been opposed to the idea of selection – the process by which, in certain area of the country, pupils of a certain age sit exams (known as the “11-plus”) designed to identify the most academically able and offer them places at grammar school.  However, New Labour has avoided scrapping selection and, in many areas, has increased the opportunities for it to be used.

By the time the SSFA 1998 was passed, there were 166 grammar schools still in existence (in Ripon, North Yorkshire, the London Boroughs of Barnet and Sutton, Birmingham, Trafford and Kent), and the Government resolved to keep them in place – provided this was the will of the parents whose children attended them.  Two types of ballot were announced:

·           Area ballots – In areas of the country where the majority of all secondary schools are grammar schools, all local parents would be balloted.  In the event, in Kent, where this process would have had to be used, the Government decided during its September 2000 party conference to abandon the idea due to the logistics of collecting all the required signatures.

·           Feeder ballots – In areas where some of the secondary schools were grammar schools, all parents of children attending feeder primary schools (i.e. ones in the specific catchment area of the secondary school) were to be balloted.  In Ripon, where this was first done, a two-thirds majority voted in favour of keeping the local grammar school.

In addition to retaining pre-existent grammar schools, Labour has actually increased selection by allowing some so-called specialist schools to select a small proportion of their pupils. Contrary to widespread belief, the term specialist school is a generic one which refers to all secondary schools that are regarded as having specialisms in certain subjects (e.g. sport or music). It is not a synonym for CTCs and academies alone.  Most secondary schools – including ordinary comprehensives - now have some kind of specialism, allowing them to draw down additional capital funding from central government to improve their facilities and extracurricular provision in those areas (normally in return for lending out those facilities when they are not using them directly to other local schools and community groups). These standard specialist schools are not permitted to ‘select’ pupils, but academies are allowed to use ‘permitted selection’ for up to 10 per cent of their intake. The criteria used will normally relate to the aptitude of applicants in the relevant specialist subject area(s).

New Labour and the Great Parental Choice Debate

The Tories introduced the idea of “parental choice” – which, at the time, was widely believed to mean that parents could choose to send their children to whichever school they chose in a given area.  In reality, however, the most popular schools quickly became over-subscribed and only had a limited ability to provide places for all the children seeking to enter them. This problem has seen some local authorities adopt increasingly radical, and controversial, measures in recent years to tackle the dual problem of over- and under-subscribed schools – and the related issue of ‘social mix’. In an effort to give children from poorer households of Brighton and Hove a fair chance of being admitted to the city’s most popular schools (three secondaries located in a so-called ‘golden triangle’ in an affluent area), the local authority introduced a ‘lottery’ system in 2008, which sees children’s names effectively drawn out of a hat.

The ‘parent choice’ system allows parents to express a preference for the school of their choice, and appeal if their place was denied them – but only that.  Under a new national code of practice introduced by the SSFA 1998, the availability of places is decided as follows:-

·           LEAs decide, according to national guidelines, how many pupils may be admitted to a given school under their charge (governing bodies of foundation and voluntary schools do the same)

·           The LEAs/governing bodies are known for this purpose as the admission authority and must publish their admission arrangements in a given academic Year: these must specify the precise admission criteria for given schools (i.e. how applications for admissions should be prioritised).  Appeals can be lodged

·           Admission authorities are directed to comply with parental preference unless one of the following criteria is met:

(a)     Admissions would prejudice the provision of efficient education or efficient use of resources

(b)     Admissions would reduce the religious character of a foundation or voluntary aided school

(c)     The school is permitted to operate a selection process

(d)     The school is reducing its infant classes to meet the national limit

(e)     In the previous two years, the child in question had been excluded from two or more schools.

The Monitoring of School Quality and Ofsted

Until 1992, school standards were enforced by inspectors from two bodies: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate and LEAs themselves.  However, the Education (Schools) Act 1992 and the School Inspections Act 1996 established a new, more coordinated system under the auspices of a new Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted – Welsh equivalent Estyn) and, at the head of each, a Chief Inspector of Schools.  Its first round of inspections had to be completed within four years, with subsequent ones every six years thereafter.  Each follows a set framework for inspection:

·           Summary report produced by Ofsted/Estyn is considered by the governing body, which has to produce an action plan within 40 working days (both report and response open to public inspection)

·           LEA required to produce a report depending on Ofsted findings

·           Where report finds that a school is “failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education” – i.e. is dubbed a “failing” school – it can be deemed to be in need of “special measures”.  In such cases, an action plan must be submitted to the Education Secretary, who will monitor closely the school’s progress over the following two years.  If no appreciable signs of improvement follow, the school’s management and teaching staff will normally be replaced and it will be reopened under the Fresh Start scheme.

Recently, Ofsted’s inspections have expanded two ways: both into the “early years” field (i.e. childminding and daycare provision) and the FE realm.  The SSFA 1998 also introduced the concept of Education Action Zones (EAZs) to draw together clusters of schools in a specific “problem” area with local businesses, parents and the overarching LEA.

Though independent schools are outside the state education system and therefore receive no grants from public funds, they must be “registered” with the DfES.  They can also opt voluntarily to be inspected and “recognised as efficient” by the Government.

LEAs and Student Funding

For decades, LEAs were responsible for providing mandatory awards – or grants – to students undertaking full-time higher education courses.  However, in 1997, after years of “frozen”, state grants were finally scrapped by New Labour, in favour of a further roll-out of the Student Loans system introduced by the Tories in the early 1990s.  Following fierce opposition from many families, the current Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced the partial return of grants last year – but only of up to £1,000 a year for students whose parents earn less than £10,000. 

LEAs also have the power to make discretionary awards to students who follow courses that do not carry mandatory grants – often postgraduate and/or vocational ones.

Office for Fair Access

A quango set up by Labour to ensure Higher Education institutions promote fair access, with particular emphasis on opportunities for young people from poorer backgrounds. It is led by a Director of Fair Access, whose job entails ordering institutions that charge tuition fees above the standard level to produce an access agreement detailing how they intend to provide access to their courses to people from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g. through bursaries, scholarships, etc).

© James Morrison 2007