Local Educational Governance, Accountability, and Democracy in the United Kingdom

This article reports an investigation into the links between local educational government, accountability, and democracy. Four case studies of local education authorities (LEAs) were designed to show how the LEAs were interpreting and responding to the accountability policy framework put in place by the 1988, 1992, and 1993 Education Acts. Qualitative methods were used to gather data from a range of stakeholders in settings broadly representative of political ideologies, size, location, demography, and history. Critical policy analysis was then used to identify the impact and effects of these policies in the LEAs and the broader social and societal consequences. Three emergent models of accountability enactments were found. There was considerable potential found in the current situation of cultural transformation for a politics of accountability at a local level to achieve more reciprocal relationships and communitarian forms of accountability.