RUTH KELLY was at prep school when David Hart became general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT).

She is now the twelfth education secretary to joust with Hart since he took charge of the country’s largest heads’ union in 1978. The general election will determine whether he makes it a baker’s dozen before he retires in the summer. The NAHT annual conference, which ended yesterday, was his last after 27 years as general secretary.

Whoever wins power, Hart’s legacy will be visible in the elevated status of heads as effectively the chief executives of England’s school system. He has long championed greater freedom for heads to run schools, arguing that they are far better placed than local authorities to meet the needs of pupils and parents. He has also pushed for salaries of up to six figures, saying rewards should reflect the risks and responsibilities of modern headship.

Hart, who will be 65 in August, is unique among school union leaders in having no background in education. He trained as a solicitor and got a job in 1965 with a law firm whose clients included the NAHT.

“I was a raw 25-year-old when the senior partner said I should take on the NAHT. I looked after them for about ten years and when the general secretary’s job came up I decided to go for it.”

Hart’s forensic skills as a lawyer have proved highly useful in negotiations with government. He names Kenneth Baker and David Blunkett as the two outstanding education secretaries he encountered.

Baker’s 1988 Education Reform Act under Margaret Thatcher ushered in the national curriculum, testing, league tables and grant-maintained schools. Blunkett introduced the literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools during Tony Blair’s first term.

“Baker stands head and shoulders above the others — the Education Reform Act was the biggest reform programme since 1944. We live in that world now.”

Blunkett, he says, cleverly persuaded the Treasury to back performance-pay reforms that let classroom teachers earn £30,000 a year. By contrast, Hart finds Kelly’s emphasis on “parent power” worrying, saying parents are interested in their own children’s education, not in running schools. The policy was a substitute for an inability to satisfy parental demand for places at the most popular schools.

Ministers have regarded the NAHT, whose 29,000 members are drawn largely from primary schools, as the voice of reason under Hart. However, he has been such a dominant figure that the search for a successor proved divisive. The union’s executive named David Hawker, Brighton council’s head of children’s services, as their choice. But a membership revolt forced an election last month that gave the nomination to Mick Brookes, a primary head from Nottinghamshire and a former NAHT president.

The succession also became tangled up in tensions over the Government’s workforce reform agreement. Despite pleas from Hart to stay in it, a special conference in March voted to withdraw. Hart described the pull-out as “extremely unfortunate”.

“People didn’t understand the politics of the situation. They believed that because head teachers said we would withdraw the Government would come running and say ‘here’s another £100 million to solve your problems’.”

He cites the continuation of testing and league tables as the major disappointments of his time in office, along with the Government’s rejection of Sir Mike Tomlinson’s plans to reform GCSEs and A-levels.

His proudest achievement? “We have transformed the pay and conditions of head teachers and given them more autonomy and ability to shape the destiny of their schools than they have ever had.”

Born: August 27, 1940.

Educated: Hurstpierpoint College, Sussex.

Career: Qualified as a solicitor in 1963, worked for Herbert Ruse Prizeman. NAHT general secretary since 1978.

What he says: “The image of head teachers and senior staff now is that they run the system. Local authorities will have to delegate more and more services to schools and the money that goes with them.”

Little-known fact: He relaxes at weekends by going horse riding in Cumbria with his wife Frankie.

Tony Halpin is education editor of The Times

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive