206 BOARD OF EDUCATION 
Attempts to give effect to the idea have perhaps 
been carried on longer and further in Wales than 
in England (pp. 183—4).* While, however, the advan- 
tages to Ministers and their Departments of very 
liberal and organised arrangements for consultation 
are universally admitted, the difficulty of imposing 
on them statutory obligations to consult other 
bodies, or of giving to other bodies statutory rights 
ro advise on the course of administration, without 
impairing the control of administration by Ministers 
and their responsibility for it to Parliament, is 
considerable, and that difficulty becomes much 
greater as the scope of those rights becomes wider, 
and extends not only to particular subjects or 
ranches of a service but to a whole service embracing 
many different activities. In the case of the Board 
of Education, the demand for a “real Board” 
asually extends to giving a composite body a right 
to advise in its discretion not only as regards the 
methods and content and organisation of education, 
but also as regards the central administration of the 
service. 
Other standing advisory committees of the Board 
are the Advisory Councils of the Victoria and Albert 
Museum and the Science Museum, which were 
astablished in 1913. 
* There are several precedents for imposing on Ministers a 
statutory obligation to consult certain bodies for specific purposes, 
e.g. that of the Police Act of 1919, the Education (Scotland) Act 
of 1918, and the Ministry of Health Act of 1919. The position 
of the Consultative Councils under the latter Act is very similar 
to that of the Board’s Consultative Committee.