"All spin and no substance." That was the verdict of head teachers' leader, David Hart, on this week's Education Bill.

He may well have been right about the "spin" but this Bill does have substance.

It seems right that schools should be allowed greater freedom to decide how and what they teach

Within its 200 pages of parliamentary legalese are measures which have the potential for dramatic change in our schools.

The bit the government was keenest to highlight was the new freedom for schools to apply for exemption from current education law in order to introduce innovative schemes.

This could allow schools to ignore the national curriculum or teachers' national terms of pay and conditions.

The government is reluctant to say what sort of schemes would qualify for this new freedom as they say they want the ideas to come from schools.

Longer school day

But it could mean, for example, schools operating a longer school day, running classes in the holidays, replacing traditional subjects with vocational courses or sharing staff between a group of schools.

At first this looks like a much-needed shift of power from central government to head teachers and schools.

Estelle Morris: Holding the balance of power

After all, we now have a welter of measures (from league tables through to Ofsted reports) which impose accountability on schools and so it seems right that schools should be allowed greater freedom to decide how and what they teach.

But is this really a case of Westminster happily handing over power to head teachers? After all, who will decide which schools are to be allowed these new freedoms? The Secretary of State, of course.

Who will decide which innovative schemes are likely to raise standards? Why, the Secretary of State, naturally.

And who decides which past laws (the democratic result of previous parliaments) can be ignored? You guessed it: the Secretary of State.

Unfair?

Now, maybe I am being unfair. Ministers might reply that all they are trying to do is to release the creativity and energy that exists at school level. Indeed, that is commendable.

But the worry is that certain schemes will fit with government thinking and others will not.

One can imagine Whitehall smiling on a scheme that intends to use classroom assistants to plug the teaching gap, for example. Parents might not think it such a good idea.

Equally, a school that wants to pare down the curriculum to focus more of its efforts just on numeracy or literacy may well get the ministerial nod.

But what about a school that decides that creative skills are being under-played and prefers to allow pupils to learn through play, to abandon formal, whole-class teaching, whilst allowing pupils to design their own curriculum? Would that school get permission to drop the national curriculum?

The point is not whether one approach is better than another but whether it should be down to one politician to decide which is more likely to raise standards.

Companies

There are other parts of the Bill which could also lead to radical change.

School governing bodies will be able to form, or invest in, companies to provide services to other schools.

This would allow them, for example, to form teacher supply agencies providing staff to neighbouring schools.

In theory, these new schools' companies could bid for a whole range of local education authority functions.

So they could be providing school meals, advisory teachers, teaching materials, or financial management services to their neighbours.

Entrepreneurial head teachers could start to make large profits for their school companies.

Indeed we have already seen what can happen with the current city technology colleges which already had many of these freedoms.

Big profits

One CTC formed a company which now provides the education management for two state schools in another part of the country.

Another has made around �1m by devising and selling its own online courses.

It plans to use some of these profits to sponsor 10 other schools to become specialist colleges and is also putting money into a city academy.

How far could this all go? In the USA a private, for-profit company, Edison, now runs well over 100 schools.

Could individual schools, or clusters of schools, replace local education authorities altogether?

It is now possible to imagine a really successful and profitable school-based company dominating the education provision within its area.

Educational conglomerates

St Trinians plc could provide HR consultancy, financial management, supply teachers, hot meals and contract cleaning to all the schools in its area.

Move on a few years and maybe we will have a few huge educational conglomerates, listed on the stock exchange, competing like Tescos and Sainsbury for market-share and dividing the education market between them.

It may be a long way off still but, when taking any new turning, you usually wonder where you will finally end up.

This Education Bill may seem "all spin and no substance" but it is well worth keeping a eye on.