"Captain Birdseye" aka Dick asks some questions of me and makes a couple of explanatory comments. In response I offer the following.
The caveats are;
1   I'm not English (so my comments may not be pertinent),
2   I have no intimate experience of the Irish system apart from being in Ennis for the major Fleadh of the relevant year (ditto)
3   I have biases based on experience of both exams and competitions (again, ditto), and
4   I an interpreting all of this from a very southern hemisphere perspective.

So here goes!
EFDSS & and the notion of a remit;
My recollection of EFDSS is that it is an institution with a constitution (and thus Aims & Objectives), members are volunteers who elect a Management Committee which sets policies, makes decisions and employs staff to execute/implement said decisions. I haven't read the documentaqtion for some years and don't have the time at the moment to deal with web searching. If the aims include lobbying government then their remit is as you describe and much of what you suggest as desirable is capable of being put to the management commitee and voted up or down.

EFDSS as "the guardians of english folk dance and song"
I get very uncomfortable when I hear people talking about "guardians" of anything, let alone such tenuous entities as "english folk dance and song". After all, look at what us 'colonials' in Australia have done to things the English have regarded as perfectly good. And then look at what those ex-colonials west of the Atlantic have done to them. If you were to replace "guardians" with "promoters" (which is what I think you really meant anyway) you'd be on a better wicket.

So, how should EFDSS promote english folk dance and song? Best?
To get at this properly I think I'll first have to get past the proposition that Comhaltas is responsible for managing "to prevent the irish music and singing tradition from dying and turned it into a flourishing and strong position".

You may well be right but I suspect there's a lot more to it than Comhaltas. The Irish diaspora helped quite independently of anything Comhaltas may have achieved. Three jumbo (Boeing 747s) loads of people coming to Ennis, just from one US city (Boston) just for a weekend (which is what I saw) had nothing to do with Comhaltas. It was the engagement with the music, 'the crack', that got beginners hooked. Back in Australia the sessions were red hot. For some they still are and neither competitions nor exams were responsible really. In fact, many Irish sessions are so exclusive that those who can't trot out the very latest reel at high speed can be given the cold shoulder. Some years ago the predominance of such 'Irishness' (and I mean no disrespect to the multitudes of really nice players - in all senses) that "The Old Empire Band" was started as a reaction. This was an eclectic collection, in any city and at any occiasion, of characters who were prepared to play specifically English dance tunes in sessions and at dances. I think 43 players on stage at once was the record and it was a mighty spectacle of concers, melodeons, accordions, bass trombones, whistles, flutes, fiddles, mandolins, banjos and even a french horn. all in perfect accord.

My suggestion about enlivening the understanding of English folk dance and song would concentrate on getting people engaged in its liveliness. Would EFDSS be the best mob to do this? I don't know but I suspect not. I hesitate to draw on Australian experience here because so many things here are different from both UK (50 million, in your estimate) and US (250 million plus) as well as Ireland (4 million?); we have 20 million spread out across much the same area as the contiguous US. This affects one's approach to folk festivals, in ways that I think engage people in the music.

When I lived in Victoria I was 7 hours' drive from Adelaide & Kapunda, 8 hours' drive from Canberra and 10 hours' drive from Sydney and I could easily attend weekend festivals or perform at dances/concerts in any of them. Maldon (1 hour away), Nariel (3 hours away; BTW Sidmouth I gather is only six months older than Nariel's festival) and Numeralla (5 hours away) were the only regional festivals I concentrated on apart from the National. These days I can get only to a couple so I go to Nariel (between Christmas & New Year, 12 hours away) and the National (at Easter & permanently sited at Canberra, about 10 hours away) and the characters of these two are a bit different from most northern hemisphere offerings I've come across. The main thing about Australian festivals is that they tend to dismantle the distinction between "producers" (the musicians, performers, organisers etc) and the "consumers" (the audience). Participation, by all comers, in all things is different at each festival but routinely encouraged and well managed.

To me, this would be far more productive in achieving Dick's desires than either competitions or exams but the English context may well require levels of such things that might not be welcomed or required in Australia. This may not be very helpful to Dick so I'll try to directly address his request re 'exams vs competitions'.

I suspect both would work better for children and younger adolescents than for anyone else and I suspect that neither would work particularly well unless there was active parental engagement in the traditions as part of the family's normal activities outside the context of the exams or the competitions. School teachers are already overloaded and under resourced but the effects of their "educational" endeavours on english folk dance and song might be mightily assisted by EFDSS or the Newcastle graduates developing and producing teaching materials that utilised english folk dance and song. If I sat down for half an hour I guess I could produce a collection of Australian music to illustrate any topics in the history/ social studies/ geography/ personal development/ PE curriculum. Maths and science might take me a little longer but I reckon its doable and that's with only 200 years of material behind me. Doing it for England should be a doddle!

Despite my protestations and biases there'll always be a place for both exams and competitions when teaching/learning theory and/or technique. It's just that I don't have much confidence in their ability to inspire and inspiration of the young (and old) seems to be what's needed.

A bit of a rave, and possibly not as helpful as you wanted but it's offered with good intentions.

Cheers, Rowan