It was established in 1998 through the reconstitution of the National Council for Educational Technology (NCET), which oversaw the procurement of all ICT equipment and e-learning strategy for schools.

"[4] The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) was managed by Becta and was set up as a gateway to educational resources to support schools and colleges across the UK.

The NGfL portal was launched in November 1998, as one of several new programmes initiated by the new Labour government which took office in May 1997 and had a linked budget of earmarked funds to be spent on schools' internet connections and ICT.

"[8] In January 2007, Crispin Weston, who had helped Becta draw up the criteria used to select suppliers, asked the EC Competition Commission to investigate his allegation that a significant number of the successful tenders had failed to implement the mandatory functional requirements, including particular aspects of inter-operability.

[9] He also added in his letter to the Commission that they should take action on the further issue of: [T]he insistence that many different categories of software within a particular school or Local Authority should all be supplied by a single supplier [which] has serious anti-competitive implications.