Top-down government has had its day, especially in education.
Jenni Russell has written this piece on what might be going wrong in education.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/28/education.labour
"On the day before the Commons rose last week, the government quietly issued its response to the children's select committee, which had spent months taking evidence on whether the focus on testing was distorting children's education. The committee's report had been thorough and merciless. It concluded that while England needed a testing system, the existing one was damaging. It turned students off learning, and was in urgent need of reform."
and…
"This culture of brazen denial comes right from the top. In an interview last month, Balls was asked about the fact that, in most schools, even seven-year-olds spend much of their year being anxiously coached and drilled in Sats techniques. They are put under such pressure because teachers' jobs and schools' futures depend on good results. That's the system of reward and punishment his department has constructed. But Balls simply denied it was true - and claimed he would be horrified if it were."