ILEA , Inner London Education Authority x Inner London Education Authority

ILEA , Inner London Education Authority x Inner London Education Authority

The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was responsible for the education service which had been provided by the London County Council (LCC) until 1 April 1965 when the LCC was abolished. The boundaries of the area covered by the ILEA were the same as those of the LCC and encompassed the 12 inner London boroughs as well as the City of London. The 20 outer London boroughs were responsible for education in their area. The ILEA was a 'special committee' of the Greater London Council (GLC), in the sense that once it was constituted it was virtually autonomous. In practice, the GLC and the ILEA worked closely together, as the ILEA relied on the GLC for architectural, engineering, legal, valuation and supplies services. The Clerk and the Comptroller of Financial Services at the GLC performed the same functions for ILEA.

The ILEA consisted of 48 members, 35 of whom were elected members of the GLC. The other 13 members consisted of one representative of each of the 12 inner London borough councils, and one member of the Common Council of the City of London. The work of ILEA was done through an Education Committee which included the 48 members of the Authority together with 17 other persons chosen because of their experience in the educational field, including five serving teachers. The Authority had central offices at County Hall run by the Education Officer. There were also 10 divisional offices covering one or more borough as follows:

1 - Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith

2 - Camden and Westminster

3 - Islington

4 - Hackney

5 - Tower Hamlets and the City of London

6 - Greenwich

7 - Lewisham

8 - Southwark

9 - Lambeth

10 - Wandsworth

Responsibilities of the ILEA included:

• management and administration of nursery schools, primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and polytechnics

• management of two boarding schools outside London (Woolverstone Hall, Ipswich and Crown Woods School, Eltham)

• management of two Rural Centres at Marchant's Hill and Sayers Croft in Surrey, summer camp at Swanage, Dorset and mountain centre at Tyn-y-Berth, Wales

• management of special schools and hospital schools for children with disabilities including the blind, partially sighted, deaf, partially hearing, physically disabled, delicate, maladjusted, autistic, those with speech defects and the educationally subnormal

• running the Education Welfare Service, a partnership between social workers and school care workers

• running a Careers Service for secondary school and college students

• offering financial assistance to students in further education

• management of Adult Education and Literary Institutes offering evening classes

• management of Youth Centres and the Recreational Institute for young people aged 14-20, and liaison with the London Youth Committee

• co-ordination of the teaching service including management of teacher-training colleges, support for further career development training and secondment of teachers to posts overseas

• management of non-teaching staff

• supply of books, teaching materials, equipment and furniture

• management of land and buildings including building programme to modernise older school buildings

• management of Media Resources Centre, a library of slides, film strips, audio tapes, slide presentations, work cards, packs, and overhead projector transparencies, and development of new teaching materials

• running the Educational Television Service, providing programmes for schools and colleges

• running a library service in schools and colleges, and the ILEA Library at County Hall which provided an advisory service and a loan collection for teachers

• aiding the London Schools Drama Association and the London Schools Music Association

• maintenance of playing fields, boat-houses and swimming pools

• running the Research Department to provide a comprehensive central statistical service for the education service and conducting and supporting research into education matters

• administration of two museums, the Horniman in Forest Hill and the Geffrye in Hackney

• maintenance of fleet of school buses, used to take disabled children to school and to take school children on educational visits

• provision of School Heath Service providing free medical inspections and some free treatment for schoolchildren; also provided speech therapy, child guidance, nursing services at special and boarding schools, physiotherapy, hygiene inspections and audiometric testing

• provision of school meals through the Catering Branch.

The GLC was abolished in 1986, but the inner London boroughs were not thought ready to manage education so the ILEA was not abolished. It became the only directly elected educational committee in the country. However, it was considered overly bureaucratic and was accused of overspending by the Conservative government. Kenneth Baker MP, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, suggested in his Education Reform Bill that boroughs should be allowed to opt-out of the ILEA. MPs Michael Heseltine and Norman Tebbit tabled an amendment to the Bill proposing that ILEA should be abolished. The amendment was accepted and it was announced that ILEA would be abolished in 1990 under the Education Reform Act of 1988. The responsibilities of ILEA passed to the inner London boroughs.