The Conservative government has never made much of a secret of its desire to set schools free from the dead hand of council control.

So there was a sense of weary resignation at County Hall at the news that all schools would be forced to become academies.

There is some irony in the fact the much-cherished notion of greater freedoms for schools does not apply to the freedom not to become an academy, a point articulated by Cllr Roger Gough, KCC’s cabinet member for schools.

It has never been quite clear why local education authorities are seen as the villains of the piece, demonised for somehow dragging schools down and hampering their progress by exerting some kind of North Korean grip on what happens in the classroom.

When schools were encouraged by the Thatcher government to opt out, they were urged to do so on the same nebulous grounds: councils could not be trusted to run them and they needed to be liberated from the control of councillors who were out to commit all sorts of dastardly deeds and ruin the prospects of generations of children for years to come.

Of course, there are councils who are good in some areas and poorer in others but the idea they have some dark agenda against schools and are forever tying them down with red tape is complete nonsense.

The greatest danger in the government’s plan is that there appear to be no real details of what system of local checks and balances there may be.

Indeed it seems that scrutiny and holding schools to account will fall to the DfE and somehow to the regional school chancellors, who no-one knows very much about.

There are the usual noises about lack of democratic accountability in this debate, usually from councillors who can see that some may begin to question why we have so many.

That is a bit of a sideshow but there is a genuine question about who will be overseeing academies and academy chains. At the moment, it looks like - other than Ofsted - it will be bureaucrats. Not local ones, mind you - but ones at a national level.

THERE are some interesting discussions taking place in Kent’s town halls about how councils can exploit the government’s devolution agenda.

It depends on who you speak to but the central issue is whether now is the time to take a long hard look at the local government map of Kent and start all over again.

We already know that five east Kent councils are exploring options to become a combined authority - either as a “super district” or a unitary and there are other talks being held behind closed doors about combined authorities elsewhere.

There is even talk of certain district councils eyeing up partnerships with councils outside Kent.

Where the county council sits is hard to tell. The Conservative leadership would probably prefer becoming a county unitary but that has absolutely no chance of going anywhere.

It may be biding its time deliberately. It seems unlikely that the government would sign off on a single breakaway group of councils without a wider pan-county solution for the rest.