It used to be said that the French education system was so regimented that the education minister could glance at his watch and know what every child in every classroom in the country was studying.

According to David Willetts, such a vision of an over-centralised, bureaucratic regime is in danger of being created in schools in England by the government's "tidal wave of initiatives".

David Willetts advocates a less-centralised system

Last year there were 322 separate initiatives launched by the Department for Education, says Mr Willetts, an over-prescriptiveness that threatens to strangle schools in red-tape and regulation.

Describing this attempt to "run every school from Whitehall" as "the biggest single problem facing schools today", Mr Willetts says he wants to see greater independence for individual schools and more local diversity.

"If a school is performing well and if parents are happy to send their children there, the government should keep intervention to a minimum."

Too many initiatives, such as the drive to improve literacy, are "indiscriminately compulsory", he says, making no concession for "local circumstances or the preferences of teachers and parents".

This one-size-fits-all approach, he argues, will not motivate teachers or improve standards. "Mr Blunkett is behaving like an old-fashioned boss in the traditional manufacturing industry, circa 1950," he says.

Policy review

As an example of how the "letter a day" from the Department for Education is not improving standards, he points to the test results of 11-year-olds, which have so far struggled to match government targets.

In place of what he sees as Labour's culture of control - "they see every school as a failing school" - Mr Willetts wants a relaxation of government influence over the day to day running of schools, instead allowing individual schools and groups of schools to develop more diverse means of achieving good results.

Currently working on a policy review document, Mr Willetts says he has been considering ideas such as allowing successful headteachers to take responsibility for a cluster of other schools, which would develop distinctive local approaches to problems.

"We're looking at better ways of linking up schools, in a way that enables successful headteachers to exercise influence, if not indeed managerial control, over other schools that could benefit from their expertise. We're looking at ways of spreading a successful model of teaching."

Charter school model

He is also considering the North American charter school model, in which schools or groups of schools are run autonomously under licence from education authorities, in a kind of non-commercial franchise.

"We're not talking about privatisation," he says, but the enabling of teachers and parents to take greater responsibility for schools, an independence which he says "is more fertile and more creative and is the future of education".

There is also a need for "more imaginative" ways of raising standards, he says, giving schools the "greatest possible freedom to run their own affairs".

Putting a greater emphasis on the professionalism of schools, rather than the dictates of the Department for Education, is likely to appeal to teachers - a group with which, Mr Willetts says, his party had "lost touch".

His attempts to build bridges with the teaching profession have been one of the most important aspects of his time as Conservative education spokesman, he says.

'Monstrous bureaucracy'

Although opposing the threat of strike action, he says he shares teachers' disquiet at "the monstrosity of the bureaucracy" that will accompany the introduction of performance-related pay.

As the government approaches mid-term, and the issues which will become the battlegrounds of the next election begin to emerge, the Conservatives are beginning to outline an alternative vision of the education system.

With the government's campaign on raising standards still dominating the educational landscape, the Conservatives' message remains somewhat muted, but it seems as though attacks on centralisation and calls for greater local diversity are set to become familiar themes.

In political terms these themes perform the balancing act between the demands of market forces and the need to protect public services.