THE emergence of an alternative to the Education Secretary’s plans for the governance of schools is not an enormous surprise. The involvement of several SNP-led councils in the proposal may be more so.

Since it was announced in June, John Swinney’s plan for “regional collaboratives” has drawn criticism from local authorities, teachers’ representatives, and parents.

Designed to raise standards by taking responsibility for improvement away from councils and putting it in the hands of new regional bodies, the proposal has been criticised as an attack on local democracy.

Despite providing the improvement staff, councils will have no say in who leads the regional collaboratives, which will be led by a director answering to inspection body Education Scotland.

The involvement of four SNP-led councils alongside two Labour and two coalition-led authorities, is noteworthy. This could be an early sign that the Scottish Government cannot rely on support from local government despite the fact many more councils are now run by the SNP – particularly when there is a perceived threat to local democracy.

Whatever the reasons, the councils’ proposal deserves serious consideration. By appointing the director of their own regional collaborative and having him or her answerable to chief executives rather than Education Scotland, they would ensure councils continue to have a meaningful role in the running and improvement of schools.

This could be dismissed as a last throw of the dice by councils as they bid to prevent education slipping out of their purview.

However, the suggestion has merit in that it addresses the concerns this paper has raised about an inherent contradiction in Mr Swinney’s plan: which purports to allow more local control, but significantly centralises the monitoring of provision of support to schools.

On the other hand Mr Swinney – whose thinking stems partly from frustration at the lack of progress some councils have made in working together – might feel some satisfaction should progress be a direct result of his initiative.

After all, his regional collaboratives appears to have triggered the first serious moves towards meaningful cooperation by these councils in the running of schools.

Nonetheless, Mr Swinney is likely to face accusations of a climbdown if he agrees to the revised plan, given how far it diverges from his original proposal.

At the moment it doesn’t appear there is another way forward. The minister’s original vision requires forcing a change on councils of all stripes that they don’t want, with no guarantee it will work.

Pushing ahead with such an approach could result in a lengthy bureaucratic process of introducing new legislation which would have absolutely no impact on the drive to improve educational standards.