One of the best changes has been the delegation of finances to schools under the devolved school management arrangements. You would think it would be normal for schools to control their own purse-strings but until a decade ago we were not trusted with such responsibility. Now the old arrangements look absurd.

I am sure that the council which then employed me thought it was helping schools to do their best but it had a funny way of showing it. Requests for additional expenditure were routinely refused. Supply teachers were allocated by clerical staff who lacked the experience to appreciate when flexibility was required to meet a school’s needs. New teachers often were appointed without input from the headteacher and without reference to their competence to teach. Classrooms were dirty and dingy after a quarter century of grime. A request for extra furniture to cope with growing numbers produced a consignment of graffiti-covered desks thrown out by another school.

When our own children rightly turned up their noses at this inferior addition to our own worn but cared for furniture, I suggested that the desks were unsuitable and was given the reply: “Take it or leave it.”

So we left it and made do with what we had. Many schools knew about the importance of ethos and raising standards long before they became national and local policies but the spending arrangements they suffered were a serious handicap to their work.

Originally, DSM proposals did not inspire 100 per cent support or enthusiasm from education authorities or headteachers. An information meeting I attended had a decidedly discouraging tone especially when it was explained that schools that went off on their own could lose out since they would no longer share in the larger financial cake which was produced, at council level, by economies of scale. Yet when we joined the first phase of DSM schools and operated our own budget we found that we had never been so rich. Was it possible that the old arrangements favoured some schools at the expense of others?

Suddenly we could organise repairs when required, mark lines on playgrounds, paint a corridor or classroom or toilets, buy new furniture for the staffroom and purchase supply time to cover absence, in-service or development activities.

It does not escape our attention that the items in the previous paragraph feature on the lists of recommendations for improving ethos and raising standards. Without the freedom of DSM, schools could not make such progress. Even headteachers who were initially sceptical of DSM soon joined up when they realised the benefits.

The Scottish Executive recognises the importance of effective DSM, and despite its general success has reviewed current arrangements in a quest for further improvement. The next major step will be to introduce three-year budgeting for schools along with increased monetary delegation. This will permit long-term financial planning to be undertaken, linked to the three-year cycle of development planning.

Perhaps not enough is made of the need for headteachers to discuss policy and budget priorities with staff. It is easy for heads to become engrossed in financial procedures but if staff are not consulted and involved they feel as disenfranchised as individual heads did in the days before DSM.

Effective change happens only when each school is genuinely in control of its own development and DSM is the vital key. Financial responsibility means that the days of huddling in the education authority’s shadow are over.

Any modern school prefers to make its own decisions and stand in the sunlight.

Brian Toner is headteacher of St John’s primary in Perth.