The improvement in standards in local schools since Education Bradford took over has been slower than had been hoped.

There has been significant progress in secondary schools, but the failure to give a substantial boost to the performance of primary schools in the league tables more than halfway through Education Bradford's contract has rightly caused a great deal of concern. Ideally, those schools should be improving at a faster rate than the secondaries.

There is no doubt that with the social and demographic make-up of Bradford, improving education results will always be a tough task. There can be no easy solutions. But what Education Bradford has brought to the table is specialism and a focus on education.

So the suggestion from Bradford Council leader Councillor Kris Hopkins that education should automatically revert to the control of the authority when the ten-year contract ends in 2011 needs to be treated with caution. We must not forget that Education Bradford became involved because the Council had let education in the district deteriorate into such a hopeless mess that the Government had warned that it would take control directly through the Department of Education if private help wasn't brought in to sort matters out.

Perhaps the end-of-term report on Education Bradford will be that it managed to stabilise the situation. Councillor Hopkins is going to have to work hard to convince local residents that the Council is able not only to avoid destabilising schools with yet another change but also that it can genuinely bring something new that will generate real, measurable improvements.