YOUTH WORK - Tom Wylie, former chief executive, The National Youth Agency
The department inherited a 10-year strategy document, Aiming High for Young People. The inheritance of these ambitious proposals was especially welcome, given the unwillingness of the department to acknowledge young people in its title.
Similarly, one had to look hard to find references in the strategy to the contribution of youth work.
Nevertheless, as the year went on, various strands of the strategy were advanced - on transport, disability and, notably, on resources. The additional capital funding relieved some cash-strapped councils, while developmental cash helped a few national voluntary organisations. The empowerment of young people was encouraged through steps towards budget devolution, while the belated publication of guidance on "positive activities" gave useful indicators of what a sufficient local service for young people might look like.
There is scant evidence of the department holding local authorities properly to account for their effective delivery of this new duty. While there was talk of the youth workforce, little action was seen.
In both cases, the department appears to shuffle off its responsibility by claiming that implementation is devolved to local authorities or quangos. One wonders how far the department is assessing if the grand strategy is being fulfilled for all young people, and for those disadvantaged young who have most to gain from good youth work.
VERDICT: adequate
EARLY YEARS - Steve Alexander, chief executive, Pre-school Learning Alliance
The principle of bringing children, schools and families together is a good one. It is a positive commitment to try to make a difference, and offers increasing evidence of signs to engage with and listen to the sector.
The Children's Plan, with its additional targets, has the potential to transform the childcare experience and there are a huge number of commitments to create a world-class early years workforce.
I support The Graduate Leader Fund, not so much for the fund itself, but for the good example of long-term financial commitment the department needs to make on other fronts.
Despite some of the negative press coverage on the Early Years Foundation Stage, it has shown an unprecedented collaboration with practitioners in the two years leading up to its launch this September.
One of the negatives is the reluctance of the department to accept the sustainability gap and to do enough to assist providers who are struggling to cope with the inadequacies of the free entitlement. There is also a lack of consistency in local authority commissioning and, as a consequence, we are seeing a great variety in performance levels throughout the country. The level of pay, which lags behind most other elements of the children's workforce, is also something that needs to be addressed.
I think there needs to be a focus on standardising and improving commissioning performance and investment in supply-side funding to give providers stability.
VERDICT: Good
EDUCATION - Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research, University of Buckingham
No-one could accuse the Brown government and the department of not being bold in their approach to education. The DCSF has split school education from higher education (leaving further education in a quandary) and is taking legislation through Parliament to raise the education leaving age, thereby extending childhood, to age 18.
To provide a qualifications framework for the lengthened schooling, it has expanded vocational diplomas to include academic subjects with a view to establishing the diploma as the single school qualification.
It has continued the drive to root out poor secondary schools by putting under scrutiny those where fewer than 30 per cent of pupils get good GCSEs, and threatening them with closure.
Given their economic backgrounds, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls are putting too much emphasis on people as producers and not enough on enhancing their lives. As children come to know themselves they will want to go in different directions. Education, particularly later on, should be less about compulsion than providing opportunities.
I've given an inadequate rating as the department is interfering too much and I don't like much of what it is attempting. But someone who was in favour of the changes might give a rating of outstanding or good.
VERDICT: Inadequate
SOCIAL CARE - Kevin Williams, chief executive, The Adolescent and Children's Trust (Tact)
I praise the department for pushing forward the integration of children's and education services, which is a powerful cultural shift in prioritising the education of children in care.
The department also deserves praise for the introduction of the Children and Young Persons Bill, particularly the way in which it has consulted the sector.
However, a major criticism I'd make is the department's failure to make any real progress in the educational outcomes for children in care.
Since its creation, the gap between looked-after children and their peers has widened by seven per cent.
There are still major shortfalls in teacher and social work training on raising educational attainment and, as yet, no clear agenda on how to address this.
The department has also failed to address the serious accommodation issues for the small percentage of looked-after children that, against the odds, get to university.
We are disappointed that youth justice is not a key part of the department's brief.
This means that children, particularly those in care, who are over-represented in the criminal justice system, are seen as being criminals first and children second.
We would also like to see the voluntary sector be much more engaged in improving outcomes for children in care and tackling some of the serious social issues facing children at the edge of care.
VERDICT: Good
PLAY - Ute Navidi, chief executive, London Play
When I took this post in 2004, the play sector was asking "where are the lottery millions?", based on a promise made in the 2001 election campaign. In 2005 I chaired a conference where a government minister said there would be no national play strategy.
But with a change in leadership and the creation of the department, this changed rapidly. The Children's Secretary, Ed Balls, made a public commitment to counter the 'cotton wool' culture that so often deprives children of outdoor play opportunities.
But nobody was expecting the dynamism in implementing this commitment. Last December we had The Children's Plan, and this spring the announcement of the first play strategy for England (Fair Play), which is being consulted on. To achieve this in such a short time, with great passion and determination, qualifies the department for an 'outstanding' rating.
There are, however, challenges that should and can be addressed in partnership with the play sector.
While it is good to see a commitment to invest in training 4,000 playworkers, there is a need to help raise the status and working conditions of playworkers, including pay, or they will remain the poor cousin of the wider children's workforce.
If the right to play extends to all children, as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates, it must include all disabled children, asylum-seeking and refugee children who live in detention, and children in prisons.
VERDICT: Outstanding
YOUTH JUSTICE - Frances Crook, director, Howard League for Penal Reform
We welcomed the department taking a stake in youth justice, although little was going to be achieved in the first year. The situation on the ground has arguably got worse, with young people recently involved in high-profile knife crimes.
Prison numbers in the juvenile estate are on the rise, and we are seeing real problems with vulnerable children being moved around to make space for newcomers, regardless of whether this is in the best interests of the child or whether it is likely to exacerbate the risk of reoffending.
But details now emerging about the Youth Crime Action Plan suggest a welcome shift of emphasis.
Any attempt to tackle youth crime must address the welfare of the child.
Given that the Youth Crime Action Plan also involves the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, it does appear that the department is driving much of the policy process.
We await to see how exactly these proposals will stack up - we have some concerns about how youth justice will fit into the children's trusts, for example - but are optimistic that the failed policies of the past 10 years are finally being jettisoned.
VERDICT: Good
INFORMATION, ADVICE AND GUIDANCE - Chris Evans, executive director, Institute of Career Guidance
The DCSF has not put enough effort or resource into making sure that the Connexions transfer to local authorities was effective. In some parts of the country the transition has been managed very well by local partners, in spite of there being very little advice and support from the centre. On the other hand, some parts of England remain in extreme difficulty, with staff redundancies and reductions in public services. What is most worrying is that there appears to be no organised monitoring of the transition and the department is sometimes unaware of what is going on at local level.
Sometimes it has felt as if the department has not really heard the messages from employers, sector skills councils, universities, parents and the potential users of career guidance services, which have supported the Institute's view that more effort and funding is needed to improve career guidance in England.
Although the department has acknowledged its 18 per cent reduction in funding for career guidance in the past eight years, there has been little recognition of the urgent remedial work that needs to be done to rebuild what was once a world-leading career guidance service in England.
VERDICT: Adequate
CHILD POVERTY - Claire Walker, UK public affairs adviser, Save the Children
In terms of child poverty, the great success has been setting up the cross-departmental Child Poverty Unit. It was set up by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and there are also strong links with Treasury staff.
Also, in the budget, the government put £1bn into helping poor families, which is good considering the fiscal situation.
In addition, the government announced it is putting £150m into pilot schemes that will look at ways of tackling child poverty.
The DCSF also held an unprecedented hearing on child poverty with attendance from five ministers of state: Ed Balls; Yvette Cooper; Beverley Hughes; Stephen Timms; and James Purnell. So in terms of profile, you can't criticise them. However we are very concerned that the latest figures show, for the second year running, that child poverty has risen and that is incredibly depressing. It is quite a blow for the child poverty campaign.
We need to add another £3bn up to 2010 if the government is to reach its own target of halving child poverty by then.
VERDICT: Adequate
HEALTH - Ross Hendry, head of public policy, NCH
Having raised such high expectations, the department's delivery on progressing the children's health agenda might seem disappointing, but there have been some noteworthy achievements. Last June, NCH launched Growing Strong - a campaign to highlight the importance of children's emotional wellbeing. At that time, this was an important issue that was being overlooked by policymakers and government. It has been one of the department's more notable successes to respond to this need, and we will soon have legislation that places a duty of wellbeing on schools, as well as a review of child and adolescent mental health and emotional wellbeing services. Health is now on the agenda, co-operation is taking place between the department and the Department of Health, and headway has been made on developing a child health strategy.
But the DCSF has not been able to drive through a child-centred agenda in government. The jury is still out as to the difference it can make in realising change beyond the institutions that lie within in its remit, and this will be its real challenge in the next six to 12 months - particularly on issues such as health that cut across so many boundaries.
VERDICT: Good
Panel's verdict on DCSF: GOOD (by the skin of its teeth).
