Introduction: Structures available now

In conclusion, I have argued that effective leadership of public services requires immediacy, knowledge and direct acquaintance. I have also argued that, to make change through good policy, the policy maker and administrator have to engage with organisational frameworks as they are. Few have the luxury of sweeping away existing arrangements and legislating for new ones: public services deal with people and change requires implementation and continuity plans. Knowing how they work is essential. For several years now, central government has lost the qualities and understanding that enable change to the extent, I have argued, that the need for any change in any circumstances is no longer even recognised.

For a time, with the development of the DfE regional offices I have described, led by a team of ‘commissioners’ from predominantly senior school backgrounds, with moral purpose, and a national commissioner with similar, I did at least glimpse in the distance the possibility of minimising the outcome gaps between the advantaged and disadvantaged (Riddell, 2016). As a senior local authority (LA) officer, I had been occupied with similar concerns, often taking the emphasis off other matters because of the national centralising monofocal direction of travel. Any expectations I did have disappeared with the departure of a National Schools Commissioner in 2018 and the process of rebalancing renewed inchoate regional structures and powers. As I have argued, alongside the features that have resulted from the (still) incomplete process of academisation, this has contributed to the anarchic, inconsistent chaos and muddle that we live in and that has been theme of this book. The lack of an articulated and clearly understood structure at all levels for Education I have argued, makes any policy realisation virtually impossible from a national standpoint.

I have been arguing for more open and community-engaged processes in government and specifically Education not just because I think openness is a good thing in a democracy, though I do, but that this is the best way to improve the quality of public services and engage those we serve in a more collective discussion about their and our collective futures.