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This chapter explores the Scottish government policy drive for school improvement through processes such as distributed leadership, empowerment and cross-school collaboration to school settings. Compared to other nations, this shift towards collaboration has been relatively slow, but reflects the history of Scottish education, one where there is a reduced emphasis on individualist/competitive cultures and instead focuses on social justice and equity. This chapter discusses two programmes of work that were developed to foster school-to-school collaboration in the Scottish education system. In doing so, we comment on the conflict between national priority setting and the translation of this agenda at the local level by different local authorities.

There has been much interest in evidence‐informed decision making in education – identifying effective ways of increasing the use of research evidence to provide a basis for management decision making, in both the private and public sectors. However, in education, although there has been much speculation and discussion, there has been a paucity of recent empirical research evidence that provides insights into the characteristics, practice and mechanisms of successful research utilisation strategies. This study aimed to explore how research evidence was successfully disseminated and how the barriers to research use by head teachers (principals) were successfully addressed. The study was qualitative and exploratory in nature and aimed to identify examples of projects led by, and supported by, local education authorities (LEAs), that aimed to help education practitioners to access, engage with, and use the findings from published research and research carried out by themselves, and shared with others.

This paper presents and discusses the findings from an empirical study conducted in eight local authorities in England and Wales.

The research evidence suggests that to improve research use among managers in education, strategies should focus on facilitating communication networks, partnerships and links between researchers and practitioners, with the key long‐term objective of developing a culture that supports and values the contribution that research can make to management decision making in education.

Managers in local education authorities (LEAs) can help to build networks, develop partnerships between professionals locally, nationally and internationally, and also act as change agents in the dissemination and adoption of new ideas. However, the research focused on illustrative examples of research use – and further research is needed to evaluate the impact of using research for decision making in education.

The elementary education system in Pakistan is fragmented into state controlled, municipal, and private education. The first is over‐controlled under the hierarchical structure, without any system of accountability or democratic control and is subject to political intervention. In urban areas, elementary education is totally left to the municipalities. Owing to their multi‐purpose nature, lack of clarity in the local government laws, and absence of central discipline and administrative control, the real interest of education could never be guaranteed among the municipalities. The political and administrative élite are fulfilling their educational needs from private sector, which is expanding speedily under the auspices of the government. Practically, State and Municipal education is left only to the poor people, who have no say in society. In such circumstances the only option is the establishment of the “education authorities” at division, district or the local level. This step will ensure the involvement of the related interests in planning, administration and maintenance of the educational institutions. It will also enhance a sense of participation and accountability among the educational community and equip the system with local knowledge.

Management in education departments must cater for the special nature of professional administration within them. The problems to be faced in managing such changes required are outlined and the main areas of management development described.

Local financial management systems, an area of current interest, is reviewed, and the benefits and pitfalls associated with financial devolution described. Specific examples of experiences are given from local education authorities, and recommendations are made about the setting up of any such new system.

Four aspects of the decisional framework for resource allocation in English Education are pursued: (i) The decision process is placed in the context of both its general importance and its particular significance as the system is transformed from expansion to steady state. (ii) The basic expenditure choices and the environment in which they are made are discussed for the decentralised system, in terms of the numerous decision‐makers involved and the influences upon them. (iii) The availability and value of criteria to aid the political choices that must be made—in particular objective economic indicators—are considered. (iv) The disadvantages of the present framework, revealed mainly by recent expenditure limitations, suggest that improvement is only possible if either central government control is strengthened or alternatively local initiative is allowed to flourish.

Considers the impact of the termination of the Grants for Education Support and Training for health education on the future support of health education in schools. Discusses the results of a national audit of healthy alliances between health promotion units and local education authority schools. The results of the survey showed that specialist health promotion units are enthusiastic about collaborative partnerships with education, but that the axing of the GEST‐funded advisory posts has militated against such initiatives. Demonstrates that relationships between local education authorities and health promotion units have been difficult since April 1993 and are now much more competitive. Concludes that alliances between health and education have an uncertain future.

Examines the construction of the funding formula, following the 1988 Education Act, used to determine the levels of devolved budgets in three English local education authorities (LEAs). Explains that, in each LEA, a team was formed to determine the funding formula. Also explains that, as most schools pre‐local management of schools (LMS) only kept aggregate records showing the cost of education at the levels of primary/secondary sectors rather than individual school level, the LMS teams faced serious problems in defining budget parameters, identifying cost elements and attributing costs to functions. More critically, points out that while the 1988 Education Act made it clear that the new budgeting system should be comprehensive in the sense of not merely reflecting past expenditure patterns but being based on perceived education needs, the LMS teams developed funding formulae which predominantly preserved the status quo established by historical expenditure patterns. Explores both the arguments and the mechanisms which each LMS team deployed in order to produce an incrementalist budgeting system and the constraints that operated on incrementalism.

In this chapter, the interest is directed towards how transnational policy messages (supra-level) can be tracked down through analyses of curriculum policy discourses at the national (macro-level) and municipal level (meso-level) in the Swedish school system. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, and organizational and institutional theory, we analyse central policy messages in the introduction of the national Swedish standards-based curriculum reform for compulsory school from 2011, focusing on discourses of communication between local authorities (meso-level) and schools (micro-level) within their area of responsibility for curriculum making. Two main features emerge. The local curriculum reform agenda is significantly shaped by the argument that explicit standards together with systematic governance through evaluation and accountability will increase students' performance. The second feature underlines strong accountability as a prerequisite for equity and equivalence and the importance of the local school authority for the organization of schooling, structural support and interventions for curriculum making in schools. Equity and equivalence are a challenge for the local authorities. They have problems to support curriculum making which tends to create considerable variations in how the curriculum reform is enacted in the different schools of the municipality.