Schools reform and early intervention

This chapter and the next consider the development of children’s services policy since 2010, including key changes introduced by the Conservative Secretary of State Michael Gove. From the outset it was clear that schools reform would be the overriding priority for the renamed ‘Department for Education’. Moreover, under Gove’s Academies and Free Schools programme the broad emphasis on child well-being and the integration of children’s services, under Labour’s ECM framework, was largely abandoned as schools were afforded greater autonomy from local authority children’s services. Furthermore, the prioritisation of schools’ reform meant that services such as children’s centres and youth services bore the brunt of spending cuts, notwithstanding the Prime Minister David Cameron’s proclaimed commitment to the refocusing of early intervention services. In this context, the DfE distanced itself from the restructuring and hollowing-out of early intervention services at the local level, and NGOs campaigning in this area were largely ignored.