Council education officers have been urged to modernise their relationship with schools.Such Local Education Authorities have been told that they must change their attitude over schools from one of seeking to control, to one of enabling schools to perform their best.
Schools Minister Charles Clarke said: “No change is not an option. LEAs must face up to the challenges now and for the future. 

Public servants have been issued with advice from the Head of the National Audit Office on the selling of public assets.Sir John Bourn says the former Department of Transport could have made up to one and a half billion pounds more from its sale of Railtrack
It says the Department, now part of the DETR, failed to follow previous good practice in phasing the sale of a public asset, so that as share prices rose, future sales of Government shares would result in more profit. 

By D Hird.An important feature of partnerships is pooling resources, particularly of different forms of expertise. Case studies from Kirklees Metropolitan Council and Park Lane College of Further Education in Leeds are quoted showing how this works out in practice between public and private sector partners.