John Howson’s reflection, that district councils including Oxford City Council should have been more directly linked to schools (‘A better choice for control of education’, May 21) might amuse those readers old enough to remember John Garne, who until 1974 was chief education officer for Oxford City and from 1974 to 1977 was chief education officer for the combined city and county education authority.

Throughout its history, Oxford city education authority had the virtue of local scale and propinquity, something lost when the larger combined authority came into existence.

As for councillor Melinda Tilley’s notion that educational “expertise lies with us”, perhaps she could explain where this county council expertise lies.

One of John Garne’s successors was the bureaucrat Graham Badman, Oxfordshire chief education officer from 1996-2002, whose notable contribution to Oxford schools was the closure of the city’s admirable middle schools in the name of educational improvement.

This three-tier to two-tier process was destructive and costly and Mr Badman jumped ship for a new job in Kent before the transition had been completed in July 2003.

Oxfordshire County Council really cannot claim to have been an educational fairy godmother to Oxford’s state schools.

And now? As Prof Richard Pring, Melissa Benn, and Trevor Fisher have recently commented, educational “power has been centralised to an unprecedented degree”, made possible by “The Education Act 2010” which was “forced through by the use of powers intended for emergencies such as terrorism. Forced academisation is proceeding, again without community consulation”.

So much for parent and pupil voices!

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH, Bowness Avenue, Headington