If inspectors had just ranked your authority as one of the top 10 in the country, you might want to trumpet that success. But not David Peachey. Suffolk’s schools boss is obviously pleased at the plaudits: GCSE top grades have progressed from 43 per cent in 1993 when he took over to 54 per cent last year, and they are targeted at 56 per cent this summer.

He wants to build further on this success. Last term, he met his headteachers in the wake of December’s Ofsted report. The message was: “We have a new agenda now. We’ve got to keep pushing ourselves. Let’s celebrate our success but use it as a springboard to go even higher.”

There’s no false modesty about this. He takes a quiet, undemonstrative approach to most things. As Tony Lewis, his political equivalent in the county, remarks: “David is a top-to-bottom person. He’s terribly committed. And he can talk to everyone from the child in the classroom to the educational theorist.”

It’s easy to establish a rapport with him. We uncover a shared love of rugby, and he tells me about his schooldays at Wade Deacon high school in Widnes, Cheshire (Lancashire in those days). He is chairman of Ipswich Rhinos, an unlikely rugby league outpost, and shows as much enthusiasm for that as he does for spearheading a large education authority.

As we go through the inspectors’ report, he welcomes the minor criticisms as if he wants to be subjected to scrutiny. To put things in context, it’s important to remember the praise the inspectors handed out: a highly effective authority, they said; a champion of arts and recreation; schools, particularly primaries, are improving faster than the national average; councillors are willing to spend money on education; and Peachey himself described as a well respected figure. “Schools, in particular, value his openness, willingness to listen and leadership,” said the report.

The only admonishment was directed at the appeals procedure on school admissions, a consequence of Suffolk’s rapidly expanding population , new estates being developed in Ipswich near a once struggling secondary school and the knock-on effect of the 1997 Rotherham judgment that means heads can no longer keep spare places empty to accommodate late arrivals.

“You can build houses and schools and you can normally cope,” says Peachey. “What you can’t prepare for is a very sudden rush of people coming in, combined with one of the schools going into special measures.

“Last September (during the inspection) was a boom time. It won’t happen this year.”

Peachey studied maths at Durham then taught for two years on Teesside before joining Pilkington Glass, nearer home in St Helens, but later switched to educational administration. It is ironic that in a high-achieving authority, the one glaring weakness is primary maths: only 67 per cent Level 4s at 11 compared with a national average of 72 per cent. “It’s something we’ve got to work hard on,” he says. “The inspectors could see the hard work we’ve put in, but it hasn’t come through in results yet.”

One explanation could be the middle-school factor:half of Suffolk operates this system. “You could argue that because we have transfer at nine, the impact is still there. But we can’t afford to let that be an excuse. And anyway, we’ve just won a beacon award for our work on transition between schools.

“The other potential issue is that key stage 2 tests in middle schools are not seen as the ultimate test, which they might seem in the traditional 4-11 school where you take them at the end.

“We have to ensure that we have the highest quality maths team we can get. Maths is a key priority in our development plans, and schools are aware of that. We anticipate improvement this year.”

We turn to a third Ofsted criticism: that when the authority monitors schools causing concern, it does not communicate its worries clearly enough to them. I dismiss this by comparing the struggling school to an alcoholic who is so overwhelmed that he can’t see what’s going wrong in his life. But Peachey takes it on the chin.

“We were too reticent at first, not wanting to upset schools. But if you’re too tactful, the school will feel that there is a hidden agenda, which in a sense there is if you tackle them but don’t tell them the truth. It’s better to have it out in the open and for them to see the benefits: better funding and more resources.”

We seem to have spent too long on inspectors’ criticisms and not enough on the upsides. Heads talk positively of the authority, but Peachey is aware that he needs to keep in touch with the problems schools face to be able to help them.

“Inclusion is a big issue with schools, and we need to be sensitive to that, and to listen very hard to what schools are saying because inclusion is a much more difficult commitment at the front line.

“Our concept isn’t about schools having not to exclude any child ever and having to respond to the needs of every child without additional support. Until we’ve got the full range of our support in place, there will continue to be a tension.”

He is very keen to see education playing its part in the regeneration of the deprived areas of Suffolk, an aspect of joined-up local government that the county council actively promotes. He cites an area of Ipswich: “We have an inter-agency group looking at the whole area from all angles. While we’re improving and developing the schools, we’re also leading the regeneration of the whole area,” he says.

And he’s proud of that. He is proud too of the GCSE improvements which are a tangible demonstration of improvement. And he is proud of the team that he has assembled. “We’ve got some really good people, and you can see the next generation coming through.”

STATISTICAL SUFFOLK

general

Population 677,500 (653,700 in 1990)

Area 380,207 hectares (eighth largest English county) Unemployment 2.6% (3.3% nationally)

Politics

County Council Lab 36, Con 31, Lib 12, Ind 1

Executive Committee Lab 6, Lib 2

MPs Con 5, Lab 2

EDUCATION

Budget: pound;289m (pound;241m or 83% delegated to schools) Schools 345: 256 primary, 40 middle, 38 upper, 9 special

Teachers 4,780 full-time; 1,132 part-time

Exam passes (national averages in brackets) KS1 Level 2+ reading 85% (84%), writing 87% (86%) maths 91% (91%)

KS2 Level 4+ English 76% (74%), maths 67% (72%) science 88% (87%)

KS3 Level 5+ English 69% (64%), maths 72% (66%) science 70% (66%)

GCSE 5 A-Cs 54.3% (50%) - up from 39 per cent in 1992