The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

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Department OfEducation and Science or Her Majesty’s Inspectorate. (Plaskow 1985:
5) Even early supporters like Sir William Alexander had to acknowledge that Local
Education Authorities had not used it effectively as a platform for locally generated
reforms. (Gosden 2000) The demise of the Association of Education Committees,
which had been Alexander’s power base, and the influential LEA voice in the Schools
Council “Ze/? the DES seriously weakened in its ability to bring about curriculum
reform through co-operation'' (Lowe 1997: 138). As stated above, recognising this
dilemma does go some way to explaining the department’s quest for greater control in
the years to come.

In 1981, Mark Carlisle commissioned a report on the Schools Council from Mrs
Nancy Trenaman, Principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford. She recommended its
continuation with some structural changes. However in 1982 Carlisle was replaced as
Secretary of State by Sir Keith Joseph. He announced that the Schools Council would
be disbanded. His motives were variously interpreted as a response to the Council’s
declining effectiveness or, in the view of a London head teacher who had served on
the Council, from more malign motives:

Spin of the day talked about teacher unions’ dissension. Although NAS and
NUT had differences, they were not over the curriculum. It was a determined
attempt by Keith Joseph to kill it.

(NUT 2000)

I would suggest that Sir Keith was very probably advised by his civil servants in the
education department that a stronger role for the regulator was the only way to
achieve real change. Certainly from the perspective of the examining boards, in the
series of regulatory bodies that succeeded the Schools Council, the hand of central
control weighed increasingly heavily.

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