In the 70 years since the role acquired ministerial status, the Department for Education has seen several determined reformers who have left a policy legacy of sufficient stature that their name has been attached to it: the Butler Act of 1944, establishing secondary schooling for all children; the Baker Act of 1988, instituting a national curriculum; and today’s system of academies and free schools, built by several hands, mostly notably Lord Adonis and Michael Gove.

Whilst the speech Damian Hinds gave yesterday on the principles for a clear and simple accountability system may not be quite as transformative as some of his predecessors’ ideas, it is, nonetheless, important.

Over a year ago, Policy Exchange produced a series of essays highlighting the “loose wiring” of the modern English education system, and called for the government to act to ensure all the actors in the system - teachers, school leaders, civil servants, inspectors - were clear what their job was, and, perhaps more importantly, what they should not be doing. That way, the headteachers who government had freed from intrusive bureaucracy would be freer to innovate and deliver on the promise of the education reform movement. The lack of clarity about, in particular, the role of regional schools commissioners ran the risk of simply moving the burden, rather than taking it away.

Parents may not engage much with the technical differences between the current system, in which regional school commissioners have deployed staff in a way that feels to the teachers very much like inspection, and the one Hinds is promising, in which Ofsted will have a monopoly in that area. However, it will make a real difference to headteachers that they will not have to worry about being caught between two different masters with different agendas, or even just the waste of time required in explaining the same things twice to two different sets of people two days apart, as academy chief executives have told me they have had to do. Removing this pressure from heads and teachers is likely to be popular with the profession.

Heads ‘won’t be caught between two masters’

Settling the question of the “constitutional architecture” of schooling in England - what can be changed by dynamic action by schools, trusts and officials, and what should be a fixed pillar of the system - matters because it sets the rules of engagement for all the different groups who take an interest in what and how we teach our young people.

Hinds’ announcement should command support from almost everyone involved in education. Of course, there will still be arguments about the best way to improve teaching and learning, or what is the acceptable standard for a school to be operating at, or by what assessment mechanism such a judgement should be made.

But teacher unions, academy trusts, and policymakers should all be operating with a clear idea of who is setting those standards, who is judging if they are met, and who is supposed to do something about it. It helps no one if the construction of the system itself facilitates buck-passing because of a lack of clarity.

There is much still to be done to improve England’s schools. Although London has seen a remarkable turnaround, too much of the country is still served by inadequate schools. Hinds’ announcement will not, by itself, change this, but it will help to empower those who will make that change and ensure that the system is set up to help them, not hinder them.

John David Blake is head of education at the Policy Exchange thinktank, having previously been a state school history teacher for 10 years