. • COSLA welcomes the establishment of a new qualifications body, and the recommendations that the governance of this body is more accountable to its stakeholders, including Local Government, noting the importance of building a new body in line with the work on the redesign of qualifications being led by Professor Hayward. • The theme running through the report that national education bodies should be more responsive to local needs was an overdue recognition of the importance of taking a child-centred and bottom-up approach to supporting children and young people. • The focus on subsidiarity was seen as particularly important for the new national education agency.