England's Department for Education has bowed to pressure from Ofsted and agreed to appoint 8 regional education commissioners (and a super, 'national' commissioner to keep an eye on the other 8). Their role is to oversee the ~4000 free schools and academies in England. The policy has seen England carved up into eight regions, with London rather oddly split between three of these. The national commissioner will also have responsibility for "leading communications between the DfE and the education sector".
Given that another role is to "promote the benefits of the academies and free schools programme", you have to wonder just how much independence there is in the role. Not so much' regional' and 'national', perhaps, as 'governmental'. I also wondered, for a brief mad moment, whether these panjandrums would be being directly elected; silly me.
All very English – and you don't have to be in the wilder bits of Glasgow to see this.
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