The advent of the new regional councils placed education in the searching arena of public accountability as never before, according to James Michie, director of education for Grampian region (TESS, March 5, 1976).
The challenge to education was clear, Mr Michie said. Education must be efficient in all senses.
Regional councils and schools must operate towards the fulfilment of stated objectives. They must set up managerial systems to obtain the maximum returns from available resources of men, money or materials. Resources applied to education were vast, representing roughly 50 per cent of a regional council’s budget.
Education would no longer be funded as of right but would be financed relative to policy decisions arising out of the considered needs and requirements of all services.
In corporate management terms, educational administration and the schools would have to work in closest concert to ensure that the case put first to the education committee and thereafter to the policy and resources committee bore scrutiny and was fully tenable in educational, administrative and financial terms.
The position of a headteacher in his relations with the director of education on the one hand, and with the school council on the other, was delicate and required definition. He was accountable professionally to the director of education for the management of school in all aspects .... the establishment of school councils underlined the fact that he was also publicly accountable.
