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4.25
In 1979 the Education Department examined the planning machinery
within the Department of Education and Science (England and Wales) in the
light of the overseas consultant's advice on educational planning at
national level, with a view to strengthening its own planning mechanism.
As a result adjustments were made to reflect more strongly the three basic
criteria (i) that planning must directly involve those administering the
policies that have to be planned; (ii) that specialist skills must be
built into the machinery in such a way as to ensure that they can make
a creative contribution to policy formation without being able to determine
it single-handed; and (iii) that the planning machinery must keep close
to those most directly concerned with policy, exploring amongst other
things options that reflect their known views, and seeking their guidance
and endorsement from time to time. Below the Director and Deputy Director
of Education the officer directly responsible for overall planning in the
department is the Senior Assistant Director of Education (Planning and
Development), whose branch includes the Planning and Building Division,
headed by an Assistant Director. SAD(P & D) is chairman of the
Directorate Planning Committee (DPC) membership of which consists of all
Assistant Directors, the Chief Treasury Accountant and the Secretary of
the Education Department, and senior staff of the Planning and Building
Division. A senior representative of the Social Services Branch also
serves on the DPC, and Finance Branch officers and other specialist officers
may be co-opted from time to time as occasion demands. Once the need for
a planning task has become clear, usually as the result of a request from
a user division or public pressure or suggestions from within the
Directorate, specialist officers of the division most closely concerned
with the subject-matter will initiate the work of identification and
analysis, eventually tabling an information and discussion paper in the
The conclusions reached in the DPC after due deliberation are
conveyed by the chairman to the Senior Directorate Meeting (SDM)
consisting of the Director, Deputy Director and two Senior Assistant
DPC.