Hodge warns against divided services

Children’s minister Margaret Hodge has warned that care
must be taken to prevent a return to divided social services as the
proposals in the green paper are implemented, writes
Sally Gillen.

Speaking this week on the ‘Every Child Matters’
consultation paper, which sets out plans for huge structural reform
of children’s services, Hodge stressed it was essential to
integrate workers. But she said this could not be achieved by joint
training or pooled resources alone.

“In the end it is down to willingness to work
together,” she told delegates at a conference in London,
organised by left-leaning thinktank the Institute of Public Policy
Research.

But she added: “We must be careful that new boundaries are
not developed and that what led to Seebolm – [when
centralised council social services departments were established] –
in the 1970s does not happen again.”

The paper, released last week, proposes the new post of director
of children’s services whose job it will be to oversee the
work of the children’s trust.