Diocesan doubts

on ILEA
WESTMINSTER Education Committee may campaign for the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority following the publication of the London Labour Party's policy for education which supports the dismantling of voluntary schools.
There is a Labour majority in the ILEA which makes adoption of the policy likely. The Westminster Diocesan Schools Committee will decide its reaction to this at a meeting next month.
In a circular to bishops, governors and headmasters in London, accompanied by a photocopy of a report on the Labour party manifesto in last week's Herald, the committee says: "The Schools Committee has supported the retention of the ILEA as a single education apthority, and has fostered a Catholic lobby in that interest. "An article appeared recently in the London Evening Standard which indicated that the Labour Group within the ILEA would be likely to move the abolition of voluntary schools.
"Against that background the _
Westminster Diocesan Schools Committee will, at its December meeting, be giving further consideration to its submission to the Secretary of State and will consider whether it should now call for the statutory provision and maintenance of education to become the responsibility of the constituent boroughs where political accountability will be more democratically meaningful."
This statement was made to the consultative committee for voluntary schools of the ILEA on November 6.