Althea Efunshile, director of the department's vulnerable children's group, used a session at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Brighton to run through the recent Care Matters green paper. She highlighted the plans to give councils power to direct schools to admit children in care, even where the school is fully subscribed. But she was later forced to admit that academy schools would be exempt from these arrangements and that only the education secretary could force an academy to take a child in care.
Efunshile said: "The director of children's services does not have the right to direct an academy but, through their funding agreements, academies are bound to accept their fair share of vulnerable children."
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