Local authorities (LAs)
What are local authorities?
Local authorities (LAs) are part of local councils, i.e. borough, county,
metropolitan and city, which have a duty to promote the economic, environmental
and social well-being of their areas. Within local councils, LAs are
accountable for early years education, schools, adult education and youth
services. LAs are also responsible for promoting high standards of education
and the work to improve standards, as drawn together in LAs' Education Development Plans (EDPs). LAs help manage many national
initiatives, such as the
national literacy and
numeracy strategies.
LAs vary in size, ranging from under 50 schools to more than 500. LAs
are expected to delegate the maximum amount of funding along with the
associated responsibilities to schools as possible. However, LAs retain a
number of core functions which cannot and should not be delivered by individual
schools. These are summarised as support for special educational needs, access
and school transport, school improvement and tackling failure, educating
excluded pupils and pupil welfare, and strategic management, e.g. the capacity
to develop policy, set priorities, allocate resources and draw up plans for
delivery in relation to an LA's central functions. Some LAs also
handle school admissions.
Related Links:
Find
your LA via the Governement's LA website
[External Site]
More
information about LAs on the Standards Site
[External Site]
