Sure Start, the Children and Young People’s Unit and the Connexions National Unit are to be brought together within a single organisation within the Department for Education and Skills under the new minister of state for children, Margaret Hodge.
Hodge is set to take responsibility for children’s social services as well as provision for under-fives, family policy and family law and for taking forward the forthcoming green paper on children.
The changes mean the Department of Health will no longer have responsibility for children’s social services. Also moved into the DfES from the DoH are the Teenage Pregnancy Unit, while the Family Policy Unit will be moved to the DfES from the Home Office and responsibility for family law will be transferred from the Lord Chancellor’s Department.
Hodge will be responsible for overseeing Sure Start and Early Years, Childcare, Connexions, local education authority special educational needs and the youth service. She will also be responsible for the Children and Young People’s Unit.
The exact organisational structure for the DfES’s new functions will be decided over the next few months, according to an official statement, but Sure Start, the CYPU and Connexions, together with their budgets, "will be brought together in the new organisation, as will aspects of support for school age children".
Hodge commented that her first job would be to work with colleagues on proposals in the green paper.
Under Hodge in the ministerial hierarchy, Cathy Ashton remains minister for Sure Start and Ivan Lewis is minister for young people and adult learning.
Hodge’s appointment has been welcomed by Paul Ennals, chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau, who said it was "a promising sign of the government’s commitment to joining up services for children".
But he questioned how the new DfES would maintain strong links with children’s health, and proposed that the National Service Framework for Children would need to be developed jointly between the DfES and DoH.
Ennals also asked how youth justice policy would be influenced. "For too long Home Office policy has been out of step with other government approaches to children."
Barnardo’s also welcomed Hodge’s appointment. Chris Hanvey, director of UK operations for the charity, urged Hodge to set up a task force to address the national crisis in staff recruitment and training for people who work with children.