Well, yes.Yes I appreciate that, my post was badly formulated/worded. I was trying to say who might be viewed as legally liable given these issues seem to have been known about at the point of transfer and whilst it should clearly be the government, they are only good at centralising power not accountability so will the LAs get dragged into it?
What is so upsetting about your second sentence is that the amount of money, time and effort wasted on these policies for absolute no net benefit and in some cases significant issues is utterly criminal. They make so little sense from an educational perspective that the only logical conclusion any sane person can draw from them is that they are entirely ideological to (a) further defenestrate LAs (b) accelerate the privatisation of the education system.
Free schools created where there were spare places in other schools, and, where there was need, it had to be a new free school, no-one would do it, and the LA was banned from opening a new school. (So pupils now having to travel miles from areas with no spare places to where there are now even more spare places.)
Oh, and LAs still have responsibility for "school improvement" but no powers to get academies / free schools to play ball.