Introduction

The leadership of schools game needed players who would generate and communicate beliefs, ideas and evidence. Specifically, New Labour needed to draw upon and construct intellectual work, and to do that it needed intellectual workers who would produce, package, transmit and legitimise knowledge and its mode of production. Such workers joined the game through invitations, by bidding for contracts, and remained in the game as trusted deliverers and contacts. So, in this chapter, I intend mapping New Labour's intellectual work and workers, particularly through the National College, with an emphasis on the control of knowledge production.

New Labour and research

Following Lawn and Lingard (2002, p 292), my argument is that intellectual work was produced by ‘a policy elite that acts across borders, displays a similar habitus, have a feel for the same policy game’ and so acts as ‘bearers’ of the New Labour leadership of schools game. In Bourdieu's (2000) terms, there was a game in play including officially located role-holders at national level, such as ministers and civil servants, and outsiders brought in to lead policy, such as Michael Barber in the SEU, and in NDPBs such as the National College, and knowledge producers and popularisers in the universities, think tanks, schools and private companies. For example, Collarbone (2005, p 77) describes the National Remodelling Team (NRT) as ‘an example of a public–private partnership’ with the advantage of private-sector consultants who, ‘not blocked by existing “assumptions”, [are] able to introduce practices and tools often untried in the education sector, [are] experienced with working in large organizations and dealing with change … and radiate a “can do” attitude, no matter how major the task’. This interplay between institutionally located powerful people and people who are powerful because of their preferred knowledge position and track record for delivery meant that hierarchy could operate to secure change. These people often knew each other (or of each other), worked in compatible ways and acted as gatekeepers to enable communication and workflow patterns to emerge. They shared a New Labour disposition for functionalist reforms and delivery methodologies. Let me begin with an illuminative example.

In Excellence in Schools (DfEE, 1997, p 46) the following statement is made: