Education Action Zones were introduced by Tony Blair's Labour government in 1998. They followed on from a 1960s initiative, Education Priority Areas and brought together a group of schools with parents, community groups and businesses and aimed to attract sponsorship and investment from the private sector. As such they are sometimes listed, along with academies, as being policies that continued the marketization agenda of the 1980s although supporters point out that the action was targeted at areas with high levels of deprivation. The policy was not deemed a great success, attracting limited sponsorship and achieving disappointing improvements, and was not continued beyond its initial 5 year term.