Tag Archives: DfE

Are more overseas English Schools a good idea?

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In my previous post, I mentioned the DfE’s new export drive Strategy to boost UK education abroad in major £40bn growth drive – GOV.UK This release was no doubt carefully timed to coincide with the annual BETT Show, where the best of UK technology in education, and ideas for the future, are on show.

The DfE’s announcement covered both higher education and schools. About the expansion of the latter, the release said that,

“A new Education Sector Action Group will work with the International Education Champion, UK universities, colleges and schools to help unblock barriers to trade to expand overseas.”  

And

“This strategy goes further by backing providers to expand overseas and ensure top students around the world can access a world-class UK education on their own doorsteps.”

Whilst much of the press notice is about universities and higher education in general, as a part of the export drive, further education, and the former stable of English language courses, don’t rate a mention.

Is expanding English-style schooling overseas part of the aim “to ensure top students around the world can access a world-class UK education on their own doorsteps”? It would be good to know what specifically the DfE is thinking in this regard about schools.

Should the DfE be considering what further strain on the labour market for teachers any expansion of fee-paying export-driven English schools either overseas or at home might place on the home labour market for teachers that has yet to recover from a decade of serious under-recruitment in several curriculum areas.

Might a start be a census, even in broad terms, of how many teachers trained in England are working in British schools overseas. There will also be other such teachers in other international schools, but let’s just start with the easy bit.

Does The Association of British Schools Overseas, the DfE recognised partner for overseas schools, already collect this data. If not, would it be willing to support an anonymous survey of its members, to see how many teachers trained in England are already working overseas, and what expansion in staffing these schools expect over the next few years?

A demand for 50 more physical education teachers would not be a problem for the home market to absorb, but recruiting 50 more physics teachers for schools overseas might well create problems for schools in England.

If the DfE is serious about exports, should any schools’ committee on the proposed Sector Action Group ask the DfE to consider adding an additional element to the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model to take account of the needs of the export drive by schools?

With demand for teacher training in England from some parts of the world growing significantly over the past couple of years, perhaps these overseas trainees could be licensed only to teach outside the United Kingdom in overseas schools?

Exports are good for the economy, but not if they deprive students in England of the same quality of education. Historians remember the challenges faced by the 1945 Labour government in restricting home demand to allow for exports in order to bring in much needed cash after the war.

I am sure the DfE would not want create a similar situation in schooling 80 years later.

Exports good, but the poor won’t be able to afford them

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Yesterday, I went to listen to Monica Harding MP, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on international development discuss the importance of our overseas aid budget, and the manner in which successive Conservative and Labour governments have reduced the share spent on aid from 0.7% of the government’s budget, agreed during the coalition government, to 0.3% under present Labour government.

Interestingly, on the same day, The Department for Education announced its new ‘International Education Strategy’ Strategy to boost UK education abroad in major £40bn growth drive – GOV.UK The new strategy doesn’t seem to pay more than lip service to the development budget. Instead, it is firmly and proudly announced “a clear ambition to grow the value of education exports to £40 billion a year by 2030, backing providers to deliver UK education overseas in new and expanding market.”

This will be music to the ears of UK universities, especially if it means more can open overseas campuses backed by government support. One only has to drive around Education City in Dubai to already see the logos of many overseas universities, including some well-known UK names.

The press notice tries to balance fears of further inward migration – music to the ears of Reform – with the explicit encouragement to open campuses overseas.

“Unlike the previous strategy released in 2019, this approach removes targets on international student numbers in the UK and, while continuing to welcome international students, shifts the focus towards growing education exports overseas by backing UK providers to expand internationally, build partnerships abroad and deliver UK education in new markets. 

This strategy goes further by backing providers to expand overseas and ensure top students around the world can access a world-class UK education on their own doorsteps.”

All this is a long-way from 1996, and my attempts to interest Oxford Brookes University in an idea to set up courses in a centre in what was then still known as Bangalore and like other cities in India has now adopted its local name, of Bengaluru. Incidentally, I believe that we corrupted the name of the city to create the word ‘bungalow’.   

In 1996, Brookes had links with an international school in the city and the Business School was also interested in expanding overseas. Sadly, I left the university before anything could come of the project. However, our vision also included home students being offered the chance to take semesters in India.

The idea of two-way traffic doesn’t seem to be feature much the current export drive, with just a brief mention of both the Turing and Erasmus Schemes in the final paragraph, although the full text does have a section about student exchanges.

That’s a shame, because exposing UK students to international experiences is also good for long-term trade, as I know from my time at university in the 1960s, when I joined, and later ran, the international exchange organisation, AIESEC, bringing business and economics students together from more than 50 countries.

As a result of my own experiences, I applaud the export drive in principle, and will discuss the UK school’s element of it in another post, but also believe the DfE’s should have an international policy that at the same time reflects how the UK education sector can also contribute to the development aid budget.

Children missing from schooling

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This is going to be one of my ‘nerdier’ posts. Children missing education are a small but important group of young people. In the autumn term of 2025/26, the DfE estimated that there were around 34,700 such pupils in England – down for 39,200 in the previous autumn term of 2024/25. Across the whole year 2024/25, some 143,000 children were estimated by the DfE as missing education at some point in the year. Children missing education: methodology – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

The DfE relies upon local authorities for the collection of the data. The re-organisation of the shire counties over the next few years may well affect data quality, where new ‘unitary authorities’ are created and new teams will need to be assembled. So, how are ‘missing children’ defined?

Definition of children missing education

CME does include children of compulsory school age who are not registered at a school and are not receiving suitable education elsewhere, even if these children:

• Are in the process of applying for a school place, even children within the first 15 days of the application process

• Have been offered a school place for a future date but have not yet started

• Are receiving EHE, if this education is unsuitable

• Have been recorded as CME for an extended period: for example, where their whereabouts is unclear or unknown4 When EHE should be deemed CME An EHE child whose education is deemed unsuitable should no longer be classified as an EHE child and should be classified as CME.

Section 436A of the Education Act 1996, is a duty on local authorities to make arrangements to try and identify children of compulsory school age who are not registered pupils at schools and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. Although there is no legal obligation on local authorities to classify a child as CME at a particular stage of the statutory process under sections 436A and 437 of the Act, we would expect a local authority classify a child as CME once they have deemed that the child is not receiving suitable education (which would include having insufficient information to reach such a conclusion). If local authorities have not had an opportunity to assess whether a child is receiving suitable education, that does not mean that the child should automatically be classified as not receiving suitable education. Not knowing does not mean the child is not being suitably educated, though the local authority may ultimately reach this conclusion if they have asked for information and not received satisfactory responses. Elective Home Education and Children Missing Education

How assiduous are local authorities at collecting this information? Difficult to say, but it is interesting that 11 of the 33 London boroughs have a rate of 0.1%, the best possible. This is along with six local authorities in the North East, and five counties. However, no local authority in the East of England features in those LAs with a 0.1% return, the best being 0.3 and the worst 1.0%.

Overall, the average autumn term rate fell from 0.5% in 2023/24 – the first year of collection to 0.4% in 2025/26.

Why does the issue of children missing education concern me. My posts on Jacob’s Law shows why I thinking understanding the problem is important Time for Jacob’s Law | John Howson

My suggestion last summer was for a virtual school for all such children otherwise classified as missing education A Virtual School for those missing school? | John Howson This could be especially important for young people with SEND awaiting a school place as well as those that move into an area mid-year when all school places in their year group are full.

I would encourage local politicians to check their percentage of missing children, and how well officers track such children. It was an Ombudsman’s report that originally sparked my interest in this issue.  Education is a fundamental Human Right | John Howson

The original paper to Oxfordshire’s Scrutiny Committee in 2019 highlighted 9,600 records that were incomplete at that time and the exercise Oxfordshire officers took to update their records!  aebhdfh I wonder how many local authorities have conducted such a thorough examination of their records.

Hopefully, now the DfE is collecting data, more attention is being paid to children that might slip though the net.

£200 million SEND teacher training: what’s missing?

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One should never look a gift horse in the mouth, and today’s DfE announcement of CPD worth £200 million for:

“new courses available to all teaching staff will deepen knowledge of how to adapt their teaching to meet a wide range of needs in the classroom, including visual impairments and speech and language needs.

Teachers will learn about the things we know can transform how children access education, such as using assistive technology like speech to text dictation tools and building awareness of additional needs amongst all pupils, so every child can go on to succeed. “ £200 million landmark SEND teacher training programme – GOV.UK

Is clearly to be welcomed.

If the aim by the DfE is to reach half the teaching force, plus a percentage of non-teaching staff, such as teaching assistants, the figure of £200 million might work out at around £1,000 per person per course.

Now, I guess you can get a lot of on-line self-assessed delivery for that price, but add in face-to-face tuition, with travel and ‘cover’ costs to be taken into consideration, and £1,000 per person doesn’t seem as useful a sum. So, perhaps the government only want to reach say, a quarter of the profession? The news release is silent on such matters.

I am always sceptical when a news item is released on a Friday; a good day for burying news with awkward questions attached. Unless, the White Paper on SEND, when it appears, mandates a qualification necessary to work with SEND, and an advance qualification to work in a special school or unit, these schools may still have a disproportional number of under-qualified teachers.

Is it better either to create a programme to upgrade all teachers (as in this announcement) or to focus on the training needs of those teaching children and young people in special settings, along with upgrading the diagnostic tools to identify as early as possible children that will need additional support.

As with all policies, it is a judgement call. This government has opted for the ‘spread it thin’ approach, with an eye-catching headline amount. Incidentally, is the £200mn for one year or spread over several years? I am sure a journalist will ask.

So, thanks for something, but where is the cash coming from? Will other CPD be cut, or is this new money from HM Treasury: an unlikely proposition in the current cash-strapped climate faced by government.

The other question still to be addressed is around who will deliver the programme, and how will procurement ensure that the DfE obtains best value for the money?

DfE Vacancy site: fit for purpose?

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When the Public Accounts Committee effectively told the DfE to create a vacancy website some eight years ago Teacher Recruitment | John Howson and Why is the DfE spending millions inventing a teacher vacancy service? | John Howson the present site, in its original form, was the outcome.

At the time, I pointed out to the DfE that TeachVac was already doing most of what was required, and for free. As my post above shows, the editor of the TES at the time also had something to say.

Sadly, and probably because of procurement rules – although the DfE could have sanctioned a trial of TeachVac to understand the requirements of any vacancy site – the DfE spent public money procuring a site that wasn’t fit for purpose. At least with the browser I use, the site still has significant shortcomings from the point of view of jobhunters.

Although free to use, it is not mandatory for state schools to use the DfE site, so, some do, and some don’t. This leaves jobseekers with the need to search more than one site to check for all vacancies: not a good idea at the best of times, and certainly not when falling rolls make jobs harder to come by.

The DfE site also has its idiosyncrasies. Although it tells users that jobs appear with the most recent first, that isn’t always the case.  Page two of a list may well start with a duplication of some jobs from page one, and new jobs, not recorded earlier may pop up almost anywhere in a listing.

Perhaps.it might be better to lists jobs by closing dates, as that is what matters to many jobseekers: do I have time to apply for this job?

Some vacancies appear with either very short – is there an internal candidate – or very long periods between advert and closing date. The latter schools risk losing candidates to schools that are fleeter of foot in the recruitment process, and being left with only candidates that they wouldn’t want to appoint, except in those areas where there is an over-supply of teachers.

As job hunting is such a key part of their members’ work-life, I have always been surprised that the teacher associations haven’t been more vocal with the DfE in demanding a cheap and purposeful job board, using the best of modern technology at the lowest cost to schools. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, as when I tried to sell the idea of TeachVac in 2013, there was no interest.

Now I am once again researching vacancies, I can cheerfully say, mixing up TLA, technicians and other non-teaching jobs with teaching vacancies, and including random jobs like a drama post or TV and film vacancy in the music vacancy list strikes me as irritating, but perhaps it is good to persuade teachers to look beyond their original search criteria?

I am sure the DfE could make money by inviting private schools to use their site. I have seen a couple of vacancies for such schools on the DfE site, but it is overwhelmingly state schools.

Perhaps it is time for a rethink of the most cost-effective way for schools to recruit teachers and candidates to find the vacancies?

Primary schools extend their age ranges

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Primary schools are no longer the 5-11 schools of yesteryear. Even before the present cycle of falling rolls started affecting schools, especially in London, schools across the primary sector had been extending their age range downwards into what has traditionally been seen as the province of state nursery schools and the private sector.

During our survey of headteacher vacancies for the autumn term of 2025, reported in the post   Recruiting headteachers in 2025 – a mixed picture | John Howson The age range of the school was one of the variables collected as part of the evidence base.

The data from autumn 2025 vacancies has been analysed from some 254 primary schools covering the age range up to age eleven and starting at the age of five or below that age – thus, not including infant schools, as they don’t go up to age eleven.

The table below shows the results

Age range of schoolnumberPercentage of total 
2-113614% 
3-119538% 
4-1110541% 
5-11187% 

 3-11 or 4-11 schools dominated the schools that advertised for a headteacher during autumn 2025, accounting for 80% of the total. Interestingly, there were more adverts for 2-11 schools than for the traditional 5-11 primary schools. Such downward extension of age ranges should help to answer the question, what do primary schools do with children not toilet trained? The answer, as you extend the age range downwards, and the likelihood of such an occurrence increases, must be to put in place expertise to deal with the situation as well as to seek government measures to help parents understand the importance of children being able to cope in social settings such as schools.

As more primary schools face falling rolls, and hence the probability of unused space within the school site, will these schools also extend their age range downwards to become 2-11 schools? If so, and I see no real reason why they wouldn’t do so, what will this do to the private nursery and childminder markets?

Fewer children, more competition, and the ability for families to drop all their children aged between 5-11 in the same place must be a powerful selling point for state primary schools, especially if the additional children recruited to the school roll replace revenue lost to schools from falling rolls, especially at a time when the school funding formula is heavily predicated upon pupil numbers.

Are 2-11 schools evenly distributed across England? The sample of 36 such schools from the autumn term is too small to yet make a definitive judgement. To do so one would need to interrogate the DfE’s database of schools, but the results are interesting. In the 2025 survey, two regions, the North West (10) and the West Midlands (8) account for half of the 2-11 schools that advertised for a new headteacher during the autumn of 2025.

While there was no region without   any adverts from such schools, three regions, London, the East Midlands and the North East only had one school of 2-11 recorded in the survey. The East of England had two schools in the survey, and the South East, three schools. Yorkshire and the Humber and the South West regions each had five schools in the survey from the 2-11 age range.

Might extending their age range downwards be a solution to some schools in London facing possible closure from falling rolls? It is certainly a question worth asking if it can increase the schools’ income to a point where it remains financially viable and able to service its community.  

Brand names for schools?

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What’s in a name? I suspect that St Mary’s, albeit in a myriad of different forms, probably remains the most popular name for a school; certainly, for primary schools.  For some reason, it seems like it is less common to use the name of a saint in the name of a church secondary school. The exception to this rule seems to be where the saint was a Martyr, and especially and English martyr.

However, with the growth of academies, is a new trend developing of including the name of the operator of the Multi Academy Trust to which the school belongs in the schools’ name? I was alerted to this possibility when entering headteacher vacancies. Recruiting headteachers in 2025 – a mixed picture | John Howson

In the course of entering vacancies, I came across a school called: ‘Saracens Broadfields’. Now, I have always associated The Saracens with a rugby union club, originating, I believe, in Southgate. This school provides no indication of its location in its name, but it is located elsewhere in outer London.

Some MATs, such as Dixons, provide both the brand name, Dixons, plus the location in the name of the school in the names of many of their schools.

Of course, it is important to know the group responsible for a school, and in the days before websites, when parents had to rely upon the noticeboard by the school gate, that noticeboard used to display the local authority, diocese or other operator of the school alongside the school’s name. In practice, most schools still have noticeboards, and these boards still contain the same information. However, it is often more of a challenge to find who is responsible for a school from its website.

Happily, the DfE has a solution, as the details of a school on the DfE information portal contain the name of any academy trust, diocese, local authority or other operator. This makes it possible to see all the schools under the control of the operator; very helpful where the schools are spread across several different local authority areas, as is the case with many dioceses, and a growing number of academy trusts.

Apart from Queen Elizabeth, and various Henry’s, royalty does feature highly in school names. These are usually references to Tudor monarchs that help establish the schools from with the current school can trace its lineage.  A few politicians, often former education ministers, such as Ellen Wilkinson and Rab Butler have been honoured to have schools named after them. Some other famous people have had local schools named after them, such as Sir Malcolm Sarget in Stamford and Sir Frank Whittle in Coventry. Florence Nightingale has a primary school named after her, and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson has a secondary school bearing her name, although from its web site it would be a challenge to discover why the school had that name, and that seems a shame.

So will schools be unceasingly likely to display their brand in their names. If so, what will happen when a school is traded between MATS for some reason or other.  Clearly, the name will have to change.

Let me finish this post, the first of 2026, by wishing readers all the best for the New Year. May 2026 be a good year for you.

Do we need local democracy in our schooling system?

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Should local elected politicians have a say about schooling in their local areas? An alternative to that system is the NHS model of provision, a service run by professionals and managers, with little or no local democratic involvement, other than in public health.

As someone that has been involved in politics (for the Liberal Democrats) since the 1960s, I have strong views on this topic, especially as I have spent my whole adult life working in the education sector, as a teacher, lecturer, civil servant – albeit briefly – columnist and blogger, and entrepreneur. For me, local democracy is important. For others, it seems the need for local democracy has been declining in importance over the decades.

When I was at university, local authorities ran local education; they trained and appointed the teachers – often in association with the main Christian denominations – set the level of spending on schooling, and built and ran the buildings.

After the Robbins Report into Higher Education in the 1960s, local authorities grip on education began to weaken, and central government began to take more control over decision-making about schools and how they were managed.

First, the training of teachers was removed form local authorities into higher education, so by 1992 when all public sector high education became centrally managed, local authorities no longer controlled this vital resource.

At the same time, the consequences of the 1988 Education Reform Act saw a National Curriculum introduced. Funding was devolved to schools, significantly reducing the power of Education Committees to decide local funding priorities. The Blair government then effectively abolished Education Committees, putting power over schooling in the hands of a single Cabinet member, often with only weak scrutiny of the service.

However, notionally schools were still mostly community schools, except where they were under the control of charities and the churches.

The creation of academies by the Labour government of Gordon Brown, and their subsequent enthusiastic uptake by the coalition government of 2010-15 by Michael Gove, removed almost all the remaining powers of locally elected councils over the running of schools, while allowing the churches to retain their control over voluntary aided schools that had become academies.

By the present time, most councils now have children’s services, almost always run by a social work professional, with the lead officer in charge of schools being a second or even third tier position. The national funding formula left councils with few choices to make about schools, except over poisoned chalices like SEND and home to school transport.

Councils taking children into care could not even direct academies to provide a place for the child, but on the other hand were forced to deal with decisions on exclusion of pupils made by schools.

 Is the system better run now than in the 1960s. The big test currently facing much of England is how local areas will deal with falling school rolls. Who will decide on which schools close or take reduced intakes? Should there be local democratic debate about this issue, or, in our fast-moving modern worlds, are local views irrelevant?

I am on the side of those that still believe there is a role for local communities in the management of schooling, and do not like the NHS style model that is increasingly commonplace.  However, because education never polls highly as an issue during general elections, I fear we will have a schooling system designed and run by professionals, and with little or no scrutiny or oversight. We will be the poorer for this outcome.

This post was written for the University of Liverpool’s School of Education blog in November. however, the link has been broken, so i am reposting my thoughts here on my own blog.

SEND funding switched to schools?

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Has the funding of SEND just become even more complicated for 2026-27? Under the arrangements announced by the DfE, cash has moved from the High Needs Block to other funding streams within the Dedicated Schools Grant.  Dedicated schools grant (DSG): 2026 to 2027 – GOV.UK

Now I am no expert in schools funding, and the labyrinthine calculations employed by the DfE in deciding both the size of the cake and its distribution.  However, it does seem as if all local authorities will see their High Needs Block funding stream reduced in 2026-27 when compared with 2025-26. As seem usual, some London boroughs have been less affected by the change than other upper tier authorities, with 10 of the 20 local authorities with the smallest percentage decrease being London boroughs. There are no London boroughs within the top 20 authorities with the largest percentage reductions, with the highest ranked London borough coming in at 23rd place.

Oxfordshire, where I served as the Cabinet member until May’s elections, has seen a decline of 18.75% in its High Needs block. That decline ranks it in the top 25 local authorities for the largest reductions in their High Needs Block. Hopefully, the cash has been distributed to schools, but the Schools Block for the County has also reduced, by around £5 million – effectively a standstill. No doubt the reduction is due to falling pupil numbers on a formula that is heavily driven by pupil numbers. The implications for schools faced with falling rolls was discussed in my blog post How might a school react to falling rolls? | John Howson

What does the DfE say about the High Needs block changes?

16. As the existing SEND system will continue for 2026 to 2027, the Department’s assessment is that limiting the funding in this way will not necessarily translate into negative impacts on children and young people with SEND and will not mean that we see negative equalities impacts. This is because the requirements on local authorities to secure provision to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND will remain in place, and local authorities must meet these requirements. The consequent budget pressures will therefore lead to accruing DSG deficits rather than having a negative impact on SEND provision.

And 17. We recognise that the size of deficits that some local authorities may accrue while the statutory override is in place may not be manageable with local resources alone, and will bring forward arrangements to assist with them as part of broader SEND reform plans, as explained in the Government’s provisional local government finance settlement document. Given that local authorities will continue to be protected from the adverse impact of those deficits through the so-called “statutory override”, and because we are seeking to protect school level allocations of high needs funding through the conditions of grant attached to the DSG, we do not envisage any adverse impact on those children and young people with protected characteristics, including those with disabilities. The national funding formula for schools and high needs 26-27

Of course, this assumes that the cash channelled through the Schools Block of the DSG is actually spent on SEND by schools, and accounted for as such in academy and MAT budgets. I am sure that will be the case.

Still, those special schools that see the base funding per pupil stuck at £10,000 for another year will no doubt wonder what has happened to inflation accounting.

All we can hope for is that it won’t be too long before the SEND reforms are announced. However, with consultation session running into 2026, it is difficult to see how SEND reforms and local government reorganisation won’t become mixed up together, with who knows what results. Perhaps the new arrangements announced for Surrey might give an indication. Hopefully, the fact that West Northamptonshire has the largest reduction in the High Needs Block of any upper tier authority (25%+) is due to its past history, not its present resourcing.

Will local government reorganisation pose a risk to Children’s Services?

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I don’t often comment on Children’s Services in local government, preferring to stick to education about which I hopefully know more. However, having served a period of time as a Cabinet member for Children’s Services in a shire county, I couldn’t resist reading the report published last week by the DfE from the commissioner put into Devon County Council to oversee the improvement oft heir Children’s services.

There were two interesting comments from that report caught my eye.

The first deal with the issue of local government re-organisation: not strictly part of the Commissioner’s brief, but an interesting and thoughtful comment

“Although not in the remit of this particular piece of work it would be wrong not to highlight a second significant risk. The current round of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) consultations is already consuming large amounts of political and operational time. However, that isn’t the main risk. The bigger concern would be for any recommendation which leads to the break up and fragmentation of Devon CC and the existing arrangements for children’s services. Given the positive improvement trajectory I have seen and identified in this report and the critical importance of having a well led and well functioning children’s services for the local population anything that breaks that model would risk stopping the existing work in its tracks with an even bigger risk that things would quickly slip backwards. As stated, this is not strictly in my brief to comment on, but the potential impact of LGR on services that are now showing signs of improvement should be appropriately considered by government as part of their decision making process.”

The second comment was, of course, interesting to me as a Liberal Democrat.

“Following the recent local elections Devon now has new political leadership. The Lib Dem group have made an impressive ‘fresh start’ and they are very clear that they will be judged on the improvements they are determined to see in Children’s Services. Children’s services are undoubtedly the top priority for Devon County Council. Three cabinet members (including the Leader) hold portfolios across Children’s services – Education, Lead Member and SEND. My observations of two cabinet meetings and scrutiny alongside additional face to face meetings assures me that the Leader and his team are very serious about bringing about the improvements needed.”

Commissioner’s report on children’s services

Managing a Children’s Services is probably a much more complex task than managing adult social services in local authorities, as Children’s Services encompasses not only the whole of the remaining education functions of a local authority, but also children in care or at risk, plus youth justice, and youth services, as well as relationships with the NHS over SEND. This wide range of activities may be why so many local authorities have received adverse reports over the past few years.

Indeed, an analysis of the reports by the size of the authority may well help to support the view of Devon’s commissioner about local government review. Is there a minimum size for a Children’s Service to function effectively, and does it need good political oversight?