It had a Council (acting as the organisation's board of directors), whose chairman and chief executive were responsible to the Secretaries of State of the Education Departments in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
It also looked to help grow viable and appropriate commercial markets for IT products and through a number of NCET managed pilots and procurements it stimulated specific areas, for example, the introduction of CD-ROMs into schools.
This included support for the Education Department's Superhighways Initiative from 1995-7 which ran 22 projects-supported by £12 million from commercial sponsors-that focus on the application of electronic communications in schools and colleges.
He set up an independent enquiry, a panel of experts who took evidence from a wide range of bodies and individuals and published his report[3] in March 1997, just in time for the forthcoming election.
The organisation was renamed the British Educational Communications Technology Agency (Becta), restructured and given the task of developing "The National Grid for Learning" (NGfL).